Staff UX Designer – Design System

Jobtailor; California (MO); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Jobtailor is seeking a seasoned design systems leader to own the vision, roadmap, and governance for Clearwater's design system across web products. You will design core components, tokens, and patterns, working hands-on in Figma and code (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, React) to keep design and implementation in lockstep.

You will drive the Figma-to-Storybook workflow, manage token pipelines, and collaborate with engineers to ensure tokens map cleanly from design to production.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in product/UX/UI design, including 3+ years leading or building design systems at scale.
• Proven, hands-on experience designing and deploying a production design system — from Figma library and tokens through shipped code.
• Strong UI development skills: proficiency in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, with working knowledge of component-based front-end frameworks (e.g., React).
• Proficiency with Claude Code or similar AI-assisted coding tools to accelerate component development.
• Experience making a design system consumable by non-designers or AI tooling, not just Figma/Storybook libraries.
• Hands-on experience building and maintaining a Figma-to-Storybook component library pipeline, keeping design and code in sync.
• Advanced Figma skills: variables/tokens, component architecture, auto layout, and prototyping.
• Strong grasp of accessibility fundamentals (WCAG) and how to encode them into reusable components.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills, with ROI presentations to senior leadership.
• A portfolio demonstrating design systems thinking and shipped, production UI.

Responsibilities

• Own the vision, roadmap, and governance for Clearwater's design system across all web products.
• Design and help build core components, patterns, and design tokens with hands-on work in Figma and code (HTML, CSS, JS, React).
• Own the Figma-to-Storybook component library workflow and ensure synchronization between design and published library.
• Partner with engineering to build and maintain the design system's token pipeline and shared component library.
• Use AI-assisted development tools to accelerate component development and design-to-code handoff.
• Make the design system machine-consumable with structured specs, tokens, and documentation for AI tooling integration.
• Define guardrails and validation to catch off-brand output at scale, beyond design reviews.
• Drive adoption of the design system across the organization and identify gaps for new components.
• Provide design leadership and mentorship to designers and engineers contributing to or consuming the system.
• Collaborate with Product/Visual/Interaction Designers and Engineers to support dense enterprise workflows.

Skills

UX design

Design systems

UI development

Figma

Storybook

React

Accessibility WCAG

AI tooling Claude Code

Tools

Figma

Storybook

React

HTML/CSS/JS

Claude Code

Job description

Responsibilities

• Own the vision, roadmap, and governance for Clearwater's design system across all web products.
• Design and help build core components, patterns, and design tokens — working hands‑on in both Figma and code (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and component frameworks such as React) so design and implementation stay in lockstep.
• Own the Figma‑to‑Storybook component library workflow, ensuring components, variants, and documentation stay synchronized between design and the published library engineers build against.
• Partner with engineering to build and maintain the design system's token pipeline (e.g., Style Dictionary or similar) and shared component library, ensuring tokens map cleanly from design to code.
• Use AI‑assisted development tools such as Claude Code to accelerate component development, prototyping, and design‑to‑code handoff.
• Make the design system machine‑consumable — structured component specs, tokens, and documentation that AI coding tools can pull from directly (e.g., an MCP‑style integration), so AI‑generated UI is on‑brand by construction rather than by review.
• Define guardrails and validation (audits, eval criteria, automated checks) that catch off‑system or off‑brand output from AI‑assisted or non‑designer contributors at scale, not just from formal design reviews.
• Define and evolve design system standards, documentation, and contribution guidelines to support adoption at scale across distributed product teams.
• Drive adoption of the design system across the organization; identify gaps and prioritize new components or patterns based on real product needs.
• Provide design leadership and mentorship to designers and engineers contributing to or consuming the system; raise the bar on visual and interaction craft.
• Collaborate closely with Product Designers, Visual Designers, Interaction Designers, and Engineers to ensure the system supports dense, data‑heavy enterprise workflows (tables, dashboards, reporting, complex forms).
• Establish and maintain accessibility standards (WCAG) as a built‑in property of every component, not an afterthought.
• Represent design systems strategy and progress to senior stakeholders, including the VP, Head of UX and engineering leadership.
• Track and report on design system health: adoption rate, component coverage, contribution velocity, and design/engineering consistency.

Requirements

• 8+ years of experience in product/UX/UI design, including 3+ years leading or building design systems at scale.
• Proven, hands‑on experience designing and deploying a production design system — from Figma library and tokens through shipped code — is required.
• Strong UI development skills: proficiency in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, with working knowledge of component-based front-end frameworks (e.g., React), and comfort contributing to or pairing closely with engineers on the system's codebase.
• Proficiency with Claude Code or similar AI‑assisted coding tools to accelerate component development and design‑to‑code workflows.
• Experience making a design system consumable by non‑designers or AI tooling (structured documentation, APIs/MCPs, or similar), not just human‑facing Figma/Storybook libraries.
• Hands‑on experience building and maintaining a Figma-to-Storybook (or equivalent) component library pipeline, keeping design and code in sync.
• Advanced Figma skills: variables/tokens, component architecture, auto layout, and prototyping.
• Strong visual design craft — typography, layout, color, spacing, and interaction states — and the ability to apply it to dense, enterprise B2B interfaces.
• Solid understanding of design token tooling and pipelines and how tokens flow from design into production code.
• Strong grasp of accessibility fundamentals (WCAG) and how to encode them into reusable components.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills, with experience presenting design systems strategy and ROI to senior leadership.
• A portfolio that demonstrates both design systems thinking and shipped, production UI — not only visual or marketing work.