Staff Content Designer, UX Platform

Etsy; New York (NY); On-site; USD 144,000 - 216,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity package

Annual bonus

Competitive benefits

Job summary

Etsy is seeking a Staff Content Designer within the UX Platform to set language strategy across the design system and cross-cutting squads. You’ll help evolve Collage’s content layer, define voice patterns, and build scalable guidelines that empower Studio, Systems, and UX AI Enablement to deliver on-brand, consistent copy across buyer and seller surfaces.

Based near Etsy’s Brooklyn Office, you’ll lead content initiatives, architect AI-ready tooling, and mentor other designers while

Qualifications

• 10+ years of content design experience with a portfolio.
• Systems thinking as a default. Diagnose root causes and build durable solutions.
• Strong writing sensibility with attention to tone and rhythm.
• Hands-on experience building AI tooling, prompts, plugins, and evals.
• Experience translating guidelines into structured, retrievable formats (style guides/docs).
• Proven ability to operate in ambiguity and align stakeholders.
• Excellent communication and storytelling to explain complex systems.

Responsibilities

• Define voice, tone, and scalable conversational patterns across the end-to-end experience.
• Build the content layer of Collage to ensure consistency and cohesion across surfaces.
• Collaborate with Studio to frame problems and ship framework-guidelines and copies.
• Own AI content tooling, guidelines, and evaluation framework for quality checks.
• Elevate content thinking through critiques, documentation, tooling, and office hours.
• Evolve how content work is done and foster a shared language among designers.
• Contribute to the content community of practice with leadership and guidance.

Skills

Content design

Systems thinking

Writing

AI tooling

Guidelines/docs

Ambiguity handling

Communication

Job description

Company Description

Etsy is the global marketplace for unique and creative goods. We build, power, and evolve the tools and technologies that connect millions of entrepreneurs with millions of buyers around the world. As an Etsy employee, you will tackle unique, meaningful, and large-scale problems alongside passionate coworkers, all the while making a rewarding impact and Keeping Commerce Human.

What’s the role?

As a Staff Content Designer within UX Platform, you'll hold a unique mandate: rather than embedding in a single product area, you'll work horizontally across the UX Platform squads setting the strategy and craft bar for how language functions at a platform level.

• With Studio, you'll anticipate where Etsy's design language needs to evolve next and get ahead of it—building the content frameworks, voice guidelines, and cross-cutting patterns that raise the quality ceiling across buyer and seller surfaces.
• With Systems, you'll architect the content layer of Collage, Etsy's design system. Defining how microcopy, error states, empty states, and conversation patterns are structured, composed, and documented so they hold up consistently across the experience.
• With UX AI Enablement, you'll make Collage and Etsy's broader design foundations AI-ready. You will build the content guidelines, documentation, and quality evaluations that let AI-assisted design tools generate on-brand, on-system content reliably.

You’ll work alongside content designers embedded in product verticals as both a peer and a force multiplier: building the systems, tooling, and frameworks they draw from; and teaming up on the highest-leverage cross-cutting problems.

This is a full-time position reporting to the Director of Content Design.

What’s this team like at Etsy?

The UX Platform team helps Etsy build usable, distinctive, and polished experiences across our marketplace. The team develops the systems, patterns, guidance, and shared standards that enable product teams to deliver high-quality experiences at scale.

What does the day-to-day look like?

• Bring Etsy's brand voice to life. Define voice, tone, and conversational patterns that scale across the end to end experience, and ensure patterns and glossaries are implementable and token-backed.
• Create the content layer of Collage. Embed content guidelines at the component and pattern level so our experiences feel consistent, cohesive, and distinctly Etsy.
• Build cross-cutting frameworks with Studio. Partner on high-priority Studio engagements—from framing the content problem through discovery to shipping frameworks, guidelines, and production-ready copy—anticipating how patterns need to flex across surfaces and team contexts.
• Own AI content tooling. Architect and maintain the guidelines and prompt infrastructure that power AI-generated copy, define how it shows up in designers’ workflows, and set the eval framework that determines if the output meets the quality bar.
• Raise the org's content thinking. Through critiques, documentation, tooling, and office hours, help designers across Etsy reason about content systemically rather than one screen or touchpoint at a time.
• Evolve how content work gets done. Carve out a new way of working for the org to move us from reviewing strings to governing behavior.
• Anchor the content community of practice. Contribute to craft calibration alongside the Director of Content Design, and build the shared language and frameworks that let all content designers hold each other to the same bar.
• Of course, this is just a sample of the kinds of work this role will require! You should assume that your role will encompass other tasks, too, and that your job duties and responsibilities may change from time to time at Etsy's discretion, or otherwise applicable with local law.

Qualities that will help you thrive in this role are:

• 10+ years of content design experience, with a portfolio showing both systems thinking and content craft.
• Systems thinking as a default. You diagnose root causes, not symptoms, and build solutions designed to outlast your involvement.
• Strong writing sensibility. You see the details where others do not, with a keen eye for tone, rhythm, and word choice as expressive tools, not just polish.
• Hands-on experience building AI tooling—skills, prompt libraries, plugins, and eval frameworks.
• Experience translating guidelines into structured, retrievable formats—style guides, rubrics, or documentation that both humans and AI tools can apply consistently.
• Proven ability to operate in ambiguity: you can frame a poorly-defined problem, align stakeholders on a direction, and execute without being handed a clear brief.
• Excellent communication and storytelling; you can walk a VP through a system's logic or a designer through an evaluation rubric with equal passion and clarity.

Compensation & Benefits

In addition to salary, you'll be eligible for an equity package, an annual performance bonus, and our competitive benefits that support you and your family. Base salary is determined by your location, skills, and experience.

Etsy uses two geographic pay zones to reflect the labor markets where we compete for talent: one called Geo-1, covering the New York City metropolitan area, San Francisco Bay Area, and Seattle metropolitan area, and one called Geo-2, covering all other U.S. locations. Salary ranges for this role vary by zone and are listed below.

Location

We prioritize candidates based within commutable distance of Etsy’s Brooklyn Office. Depending on proximity, we ask team members to come in once or twice per week. Remote candidates outside commutable distance may be considered on a case-by-case basis, with the expectation of occasional travel to the office. Learn more details about our work modes and workplace safety policies here.

Salary Range

• Geo-1: 160,000.00 - 216,000.00 USD Annual
• Geo-2: 144,000.00 - 194,000.00 USD Annual

Our Promise

At Etsy, we believe that a diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace furthers relevance, resilience, and longevity. We encourage people from all backgrounds, ages, abilities, and experiences to apply. Etsy is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ethnicity, ancestry, national origin, religion or creed, sex, pregnancy (including childbirth and related medical conditions), gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, citizenship or immigration status, marital or familial status, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law. If, due to a disability, you need an accommodation during any part of the interview or hiring process, please let your recruiter know and we will work with you to meet your needs. While Etsy supports visa sponsorship, sponsorship opportunities may be limited to certain roles and skills.