Senior Design Technologist, Design Systems, CNN

CNN; Washington (District of Columbia); On-site; USD 98,280 - 182,520; Full time

Job summary

CNN seeks a Senior Design Technologist, Design Systems, to operate at the interface of design, engineering, and AI. You will build and maintain scalable design systems while applying AI to token generation, component scaffolding, and workflow automation.

You will collaborate with data/ML teams to integrate intelligent UI behaviors, ensure pixel-accurate and accessible implementations, and advocate for responsible AI usage across design workflows.

Qualifications

• 6+ years in a role such as design technologist, UX/UI engineer, or product designer.
• Experience incorporating AI into the design workflow to test ideas efficiently and communicate solutions clearly.
• Expert proficiency with Figma 124.4+ including variable maintenance, components, styles, and shared libraries.
• Strong front-end development skills in HTML, CSS, JavaScript.
• Deep understanding of design systems, component architecture, and design tokens.
• Proficiency using an IDE (such as Cursor or Claude).

Responsibilities

• AI Integration in Design Workflows and bridging design, engineering, and AI.
• Build and maintain scalable, reusable UI components aligned with design tokens and system architecture.
• Ensure consistency between design artifacts (e.g., Figma) and production code.
• Contribute to system documentation, usage guidelines, and governance models.
• Partner with engineering to ensure performant, accessible implementations.
• Enable and empower feature teams to contribute on design system enhancements.
• Develop internal tools, scripts, plugins, or pipelines to improve efficiency.
• Optimize design-to-code workflows using automation and AI augmentation.
• Contribute to experimentation frameworks for rapid testing of ideas.
• Champion accessibility and responsible AI, including audits of UI quality and AI outputs.

Skills

Figma proficiency

Front-end development

AI integration into design workflows

Cross-functional collaboration

Design tokens

Accessibility & WCAG

Tools

Figma

HTML

CSS

JavaScript

Job description

Your New Role

We are seeking a Design Technologist who operates at the intersection of design, engineering, and emerging AI capabilities. This role is responsible for translating design intent into scalable, system‑driven UI while also identifying how AI can augment, accelerate, and transform design system workflows.

As a Senior Design Technologist, Design Systems, you are a member of the world‑class CNN Digital Product Design Team, building industry‑leading experiences for millions of audiences worldwide. You will build and maintain design systems, and apply AI across design and development processes, including token generation, component scaffolding, content generation, and workflow automation.

Your Role Accountabilities

• AI Integration in Design Workflows
• Bridge Design, Engineering, and AI
• Help teams understand feasibility, constraints, and ethical considerations of AI‑powered features
• Advocate for high‑quality UX in AI‑assisted or AI‑generated interfaces
• Identify and implement opportunities to integrate AI into design system workflows, such as:
• Generating or maintaining design tokens (color, spacing, typography) programmatically
• Automating component creation, documentation, or testing
• Assisting with layout generation, content population, or variant exploration
• Ensuring design system artifacts are consumable by AI models, MCPs or other AI‑powered tools
• Collaborating with data/ML teams when needed to integrate intelligent or adaptive UI behaviors
• Design System Engineering
• Build and maintain scalable, reusable UI components aligned with design tokens and system architecture
• Ensure consistency between design artifacts (e.g., Figma) and production code
• Contribute to system documentation, usage guidelines, and governance models
• Partner with engineering to ensure performant, accessible implementations
• Enable and empower feature teams to collaborate and contribute on design system enhancements
• Tooling & Workflow Innovation
• Develop internal tools, scripts, plugins, or pipelines to improve efficiency across design and engineering
• Optimize design‑to‑code workflows using automation and AI augmentation
• Contribute to experimentation frameworks that enable rapid testing of new ideas
• Quality, Accessibility & Responsible AI
• Ensure pixel accuracy, responsiveness, and performance across UI implementations
• Champion accessibility (WCAG) and inclusive design practices
• Advocate for responsible AI usage, including transparency, bias mitigation, and user trust
• Conduct audits of both UI quality and AI‑assisted outputs

Qualifications & Experience

• 6+ years in a relevant role such as design technologist, UX/UI engineer, or product designer
• Enterprise, platforms and/or internal tools experience preferred
• Demonstrated ability to incorporate AI into the design workflow to test ideas more efficiently and communicate solutions with greater speed and clarity
• Expert proficiency with Figma 124.4+ including variable maintenance, components, styles, and shared libraries
• Experience creating and maintaining component libraries
• Strong front‑end development skills in a major framework (HTML, CSS, JavaScript)
• Deep understanding of design systems, component architecture, and design tokens
• Proficiency using an IDE (such as Cursor or Claude)
• Solid grounding in interaction design, visual design, and UX principles
• Familiarity with current AI capabilities (e.g., generative AI, LLMs, multimodal systems)
• Understanding of prompt design, structured outputs, or API‑based AI integrations
• Ability to evaluate AI outputs for quality, bias, and usability
• Strong verbal and written communication skills and experience collaborating with cross‑functional partners such as Engineering, Program Management, and Product Management

Championing Inclusion at WBD

Warner Bros. Discovery embraces the opportunity to build a workforce that reflects a wide array of perspectives, backgrounds and experiences. Being an equal opportunity employer means that we take seriously our responsibility to consider qualified candidates on the basis of merit, without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, mental or physical disability, and genetic information, marital status, citizenship status, military status, protected veteran status or any other category protected by law.

If you’re a qualified candidate with a disability and you require adjustments or accommodations during the job application and/or recruitment process, please visit our accessibility page for instructions to submit your request.

Pay Range

Pay Range: $98,280.00 - $182,520.00 salary per year. Other rewards may include annual bonuses, short‑ and long‑term incentives, and program‑specific awards. In addition, Warner Bros. Discovery provides a variety of benefits to employees, including health insurance coverage, an employee wellness program, life and disability insurance, a retirement savings plan, paid holidays and sick time and vacation.