Product Designer, Design Systems (Governance Specialist)

Ford; Dearborn (MI); On-site; USD 85,000 - 193,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, vision coverage

Flexible family care days

Tuition assistance

Vehicle discount program for employees

Paid time off and holidays

Job summary

Ford is seeking a thoughtful Product Designer specializing in design system governance. You will ensure Ford's design system remains scalable, consistent, and trusted across vehicle software and mobile apps.

You will partner with designers, product teams, engineering, and accessibility to align priorities, improve workflows, and ensure system changes land predictably in product work.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent.
• 3+ years of product design experience, including meaningful experience with a design system 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 the ability to build consensus without direct authority.
• A systems-thinking mindset and ability to balance shared standards with product-team flexibility.

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• Audit the system for gaps, drift, redundant patterns, outdated components, and accessibility issues; help drive improvements.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

Design system governance

Product design

Communication

Documentation

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent

Tools

Figma

Storybook

Job description

We made history and now we work to transform the future - for our customers, our communities and our families. You'll see your work on the road every day, helping people move freely and pursue their dreams. At Ford, you can build more than vehicles. Come build what matters.

Digital Product Design (DPD) at Ford is committed to envisioning and creating simple, thoughtful, enjoyable, and compelling product experiences that our customers need and love. We work in close partnership with product and engineering to deliver best-in-class interactions experiences that meet the needs of people today, and in the future. Our team is comprised of a dynamic group of product designers, researchers, visual designers, industrial designers, modelers, and project managers.

In this position...

We're looking for a thoughtful, detail-oriented Product Designer specializing in design system governance. You'll help ensure our design system remains scalable, consistent, and trusted across Ford's vehicle software and mobile apps.

The Design Systems team creates shared components, tokens, patterns, and guidelines that support high-quality digital experiences. In this role, you'll help teams understand and apply system standards, improve governance and production workflows, and ensure system changes are discoverable and adopted in product work. You'll partner with designers, product teams, engineering, and accessibility to align priorities and resolve issues across platforms.

A portfolio submission, in addition to a resume, is required for consideration.

What you’ll do...

• 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.

You’ll have…

• A portfolio submission, in addition to a resume, is required for consideration.
• Bachelor's degree or equivalent
• 3+ years of product design experience, including meaningful experience with a design system 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 the 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.

As an established global company, we offer the benefit of choice. You can choose what your Ford future will look like: will your story span the globe, or keep you close to home? Will your career be a deep dive into what you love, or a series of new teams and new skills? Will you be a leader, a changemaker, a technical expert, a culture builder...or all of the above? No matter what you choose, we offer a work life that works for you, including:

• Immediate medical, dental, vision and prescription drug coverage
• Flexible family care days, paid parental leave, new parent ramp-up programs, subsidized back-up child care and more
• Family building benefits including adoption and surrogacy expense reimbursement, fertility treatments, and more
• Vehicle discount program for employees and family members and management leases
• Tuition assistance
• Established and active employee resource groups
• Paid time off for individual and team community service
• A generous schedule of paid holidays, including the week between Christmas and New Year's Day
• Paid time off and the option to purchase additional vacation time.

This position is open to salary grades 6-8. Salary grade 6 ranges from $85,400-$143,200, salary grade 7 ranges from $99,600-$166,600, and salary grade 8 ranges from $115,000-$192,900.

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