Product Design Lead, Design Systems

Rippling; Seattle (WA); Hybrid; USD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Rippling is seeking a Lead Designer for the Design Systems team to drive high-impact projects and AI-based experiences across the platform. You will define and evolve the design language, work closely with the Frontend Platform team, and empower 40+ product teams to ship cohesive experiences.

You will lead through influence, create scalable patterns, and ensure top-tier quality while collaborating with PMs, engineers, and designers to deliver reusable components and design primitives.

Qualifications

• 6+ years of experience in design systems or product design.
• Experience defining and expanding design systems, components and patterns.
• Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience.
• An outstanding portfolio showing depth in UX, interaction, and visual/UI design.
• Experience partnering with PMs, engineers, and designers to deliver components.
• Experience with prototyping to explore and convey design solutions.
• Experience using or building AI tools is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Lead efforts to simplify complex workflows by creating easy-to-use UX patterns and components.
• Define AI-based design systems to accelerate design work.
• Set standards for Rippling’s design language and system thinking.
• Provide regular design feedback to designers and engineers and incorporate their feedback.
• Manage time and processes to meet deadlines.
• Create and validate designs through sketches, prototypes, and testing.
• Collaborate with engineering to ensure high-quality implementation and UX.
• Produce high-fidelity visuals and specifications for final solutions.

Skills

Design systems

Cross-functional collaboration

Prototyping

AI tooling

Leadership

Portfolio

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent

Job description

About the role

The Rippling Design System team is responsible for ensuring every product at Rippling has a high-quality and cohesive user experience. Design Systems does this by developing the high-quality building blocks and UX patterns used by over 40 product teams. The Design Systems team also builds advanced AI tooling to ensure designers and product teams can build advanced prototypes and production-ready code based on our design system. Because Design Systems is at the heart of the Rippling Platform, this is one of the highest-impact positions at Rippling.

As a Lead Designer on the Design Systems team, you'll execute on high-impact projects like advanced patterns and new, AI-first user experiences. You'll work with many teams across Rippling to drive key, platform-wide projects and design components that will be adopted into the Rippling platform, becoming exceptional experiences for Rippling’s end users. You will be working closely with the Frontend Platform team to help build and manage our global design language and library of components. Your work will enable all the teams at Rippling to move quickly and at scale, while maintaining our exceptionally high quality bar.

What you will do

• Lead efforts to simplify a wide range of complex workflows by developing easy-to-use, highly repeatable UX patterns and components.
• Help define AI-based design systems to accelerate the work of our design team.
• Become an authority on Rippling’s design language, setting standards for our design system and how systems thinking is embedded within Rippling’s design practice.
• Provide regular design feedback to other designers and engineers on implementing and contributing to our design system, and solicit feedback from them to ensure we’re addressing product needs.
• Effectively manage your time and process to meet team deadlines.
• Create and validate designs through sketches, prototypes, and testing.
• Work with Engineering to ensure high-quality implementation and user experience.
• Create high-fidelity visuals and specifications for your final design solutions.

What you will need

• 6+ years of experience as a design systems or product designer
• Experience defining and expanding design systems, components and patterns
• Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience
• An outstanding portfolio showcasing a depth of knowledge in user experience, interaction, and visual/user interface design.
• Experience partnering with Product Managers, Engineers, and Product Designers to execute on component deliverables.
• Experience with prototyping as a means to explore and convey design solutions.
• Experience using or building AI tools is a plus

Even if you don’t meet all of the requirements listed here, we still encourage you to apply. Skills can be used in lots of different ways and your life and professional experience may be relevant beyond what a list of requirements will capture.

Additional Information

Rippling is an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to building a diverse and inclusive workforce and do not discriminate based on race, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, age, sexual orientation, veteran or military status, or any other legally protected characteristics, Rippling is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for candidates with disabilities who need assistance during the hiring process. To request a reasonable accommodation, please email [e-mail].

Rippling highly values having employees working in-office to foster a collaborative work environment and company culture. For office-based employees (employees who live within a defined radius of a Rippling office), Rippling considers working in the office, at least three days a week under current policy, to be an essential function of the employee's role.

This role will receive a competitive salary + benefits + equity. The salary for US-based employees will be aligned with one of the ranges below based on location; see which tier applies to your location here.

A variety of factors are considered when determining someone’s compensation–including a candidate’s professional background, experience, and location. Final offer amounts may vary from the amounts listed below.