Product Designer – Design Systems & Governance

Lincoln Motor Company; Dearborn (MI); Hybrid; USD 85,000 - 193,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Immediate medical coverage

Dental and vision coverage

Prescription drug coverage

Flexible family care days

Job summary

Ford Motor Company in Dearborn, MI is seeking a thoughtful Product Designer focused on design system governance to ensure scalable, consistent experiences across vehicle software and mobile apps.

You'll partner with designers, product teams, and engineering, maintain documentation, and drive governance practices. A portfolio submission is required for consideration.

This hybrid role offers a competitive benefits package and opportunities to influence system design across Ford's software platforms.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent required.
• 3+ years of product design experience, including experience with design systems at scale.
• Understand Atomic Design principles, component architecture, and design tokens.
• Familiarity with how design systems map to front-end code and tools such as Figma or Storybook.
• Experience reviewing designs or systems for consistency, accessibility (WCAG), and quality.
• Strong communication, documentation, and facilitation skills, including ability to build consensus without direct authority.
• A systems-thinking mindset and ability to balance shared standards with product-team flexibility.
• Bonus: Experience with governance or analytics tools, such as token management platforms, component usage tracking, or linting tools.

Responsibilities

• Review feature designs and proposed components or patterns for consistency, accessibility, and alignment with system standards.
• Maintain governance practices, including contribution guidelines, review processes, versioning, deprecation, and component lifecycle documentation.
• Support intake and prioritization of system requests; prepare review sessions and track decisions, actions, and dependencies.
• Audit the system for gaps, drift, redundant patterns, outdated components, and accessibility issues; help drive improvements.
• Keep documentation and migration guidance clear, discoverable, and up to date.
• Track adoption and system health, surfacing trends and opportunities for improvement.
• Socialize governance practices and partner with teams to align roadmaps, resolve questions, and ensure changes land predictably in product work.
• Identify governance gaps, develop proposals and workstreams, and help improve operating models and production workflows.
• Share best practices and support the growth of teammates working within the system.

Skills

Product design experience

Design systems at scale

Atomic Design principles

Design tokens

Figma

Storybook

Accessibility (WCAG)

Communication & facilitation

Systems thinking

Governance tools

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent

Tools

Figma

Storybook

Token management platforms

Job description

Ford Motor Company in Dearborn, MI is seeking a thoughtful Product Designer focused on design system governance to ensure scalable, consistent experiences across vehicle software and mobile apps.

You'll partner with designers, product teams, and engineering, maintain documentation, and drive governance practices. A portfolio submission is required for consideration.

This hybrid role offers a competitive benefits package and opportunities to influence system design across Ford's software platforms.