Senior Product Designer, Platforms & Foundations (Temporary)

jobr.pro; New York (NY); Hybrid; USD 89,544 - 119,851; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental and vision benefits

Flexible Spending Account

401(k) plan

Paid vacation

Tuition reimbursement

Job summary

The New York Times is seeking a Senior Product Designer to help establish and evolve design systems across various platforms. In this hybrid role, you will collaborate with teams to create reusable interface patterns, ensure consistency, and improve the design-to-engineering workflow.

Ideal candidates will have 4+ years of design experience and a portfolio showcasing their thought process. You will report to the Executive Director of Product Design for Games. The company values journalistic independence and encourages diverse applicants.

Qualifications

• 4+ years of relevant design experience working within cross-functional teams.
• 3+ years experience working directly on design systems or platform/foundations work.
• A portfolio of work that showcases your thought process along with finished design work.
• Experience building, maintaining, and applying design systems in collaboration with engineering.

Responsibilities

• Help advance the platform-focused design systems roadmap with the Games Web & App Platform PM.
• Contribute to and maintain Figma libraries and engineering documentation.
• Audit existing web and app experiences and component libraries.
• Define and monitor design system health and adoption.

Skills

UX design best practices

Visual design

Accessibility

Figma proficiency

Tools

Figma

Job description

Mission Overview & Responsibilities

The Games team at the New York Times is the group behind Wordle, Connections, Spelling Bee, the Daily Crossword, and more. We are looking for a temporary Senior Product Designer to help us establish and evolve our design systems across web and app experiences. The designer will create shared reusable interface patterns, find opportunities for consistency and quality, and set the team up with tools for success.

In this role you will collaborate with multiple teams and use your skills in UX, interaction, and visual design to explore solutions that work across games and game surfaces, align with brand, and meet standards for accessibility. You’ll work closely with our Games Web Platform Product Manager and Engineering partners to understand technical constraints in a legacy codebase, drive convergence on shared components and tokens, and improve the design-to-engineering handoff. You’ll articulate design rationale and present your work to stakeholders across different teams and disciplines to ensure the effectiveness of the design system that brings clarity, consistency, and efficiency.

We’re looking for someone who obsesses over the details, brings rigor to defining design standards and shared systems, and proactively elevates quality and accessibility across the organization. At The Times, Senior Product Designers are trusted team contributors with deepening expertise in a particular skill set. You’ll design and deliver work that helps your team meet its goals. You’ll use your craft and product thinking skills to bring clarity, sophistication, and playful experiences to our audience.

This is a hybrid temporary role based in our New York City office.

Responsibilities

• Help advance the platform-focused design systems roadmap with the Games Web & App Platform PM and engineering leads, identifying where foundational work (tokens, components, typography, layout) unlocks future product velocity.
• Contribute to and maintain Figma libraries and engineering documentation that map cleanly to our implemented component libraries, ensuring designers and engineers work from the same source of truth.
• Audit existing web and app experiences and component libraries to identify opportunities for consolidation, improvement, and systemization.
• Define and monitor design system health and adoption, identifying areas where teams may need guidance or additional support.
• Champion responsive, system-first design practices across the Games mission.
• Provide guidance to designers using the system, including critiques, pairing, and improving documentation so the system remains clear and useful across different games and surfaces.
• Be the standard-bearer for design quality across Games surfaces and system contributions.
• Demonstrate support and understanding of our value of journalistic independence and a strong commitment to our mission to seek the truth and help people understand the world.
• You will report to the Executive Director of Product Design for Games.

Basic Qualifications

• 4+ years of relevant design experience working within cross-functional teams.
• 3+ years experience working directly on design systems or platform/foundations work (components, tokens, patterns, or similar).
• A portfolio of work that showcases your thought process along with finished design work.
• Experience building, maintaining, and applying design systems in collaboration with engineering.
• Fluent in UX design best practices and usability principles that responsively scale across mobile and web platforms.
• Working knowledge of accessibility and inclusive design, especially as it applies to systems work (typography scales, contrast, motion, and semantics).
• Advanced proficiency in Figma or equivalent design software.

Preferred Qualifications

• You understand the constraints and opportunities of technologies used to build modern digital experiences.
• Experience with front end coding.
• Experience shaping team design practices (e.g., crits, documentation, templates) to move an organization toward more responsive, system-first work.
• Experience collaborating on foundational refactors with platform or infrastructure teams (for example, typography or color system overhauls, or migrations to new component libraries).
• Comfort working with engineers and understanding implementation tradeoffs – codified design intent through design tokens, component APIs, and reading through specs.
• Experience documenting and delivering UI screens and specifications to engineers.
• Advanced visual design skills, including typography, hierarchy, and layout.
• Enthusiastic about the big picture and the smallest micro-interactions.

REQ-020268

#LI-Hybrid

The hourly rate of base pay for this role is: $65 - $87 USD.

For roles in the U.S., dependent on your role, you may be eligible for variable pay such as an annual bonus and restricted stock. Benefits may include medical, dental and vision benefits, Flexible Spending Account, a company-matching 401(k) plan, paid vacation, paid sick days, paid parental leave, tuition reimbursement and professional development programs.

For roles outside of the U.S., information on benefits will be provided during the interview process.

The New York Times Company is committed to being the world’s best source of independent, reliable and quality journalism. We embrace a diverse workforce that has a broad range of backgrounds and experiences across our ranks, at all levels of the organization. We encourage people from all backgrounds to apply.

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer and do not discriminate on the basis of an individual's sex, age, race, color, creed, national origin, alienage, religion, marital status, pregnancy, sexual orientation or affectional preference, gender identity and expression, disability, genetic trait or predisposition, carrier status, citizenship, veteran or military status and other personal characteristics protected by law. All applications will receive consideration for employment without regard to legally protected characteristics. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)'s Know Your Rights Poster is available here.

The New York Times Company will provide reasonable accommodations as required by applicable federal, state, and/or local laws. Individuals seeking an accommodation for the application or interview process should email [e-mail]. Emails sent for unrelated issues, such as following up on an application, will not receive a response.

The Company encourages those with criminal histories to apply, and will consider their applications in a manner consistent with applicable 'Fair Chance' laws, including but not limited to the NYC Fair Chance Act, the Los Angeles Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance, the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the California Fair Chance Act.

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