Design Systems Lead

Summary

Join New Era Technology and become our Design Systems Lead, leveraging your Figma expertise to build, maintain, and promote a robust design system for a major web redesign project within a leading global pharmaceutical company. Collaborate with cross-functional teams, including visual designers, UX designers, developers, brand, and product teams. Your responsibilities will encompass defining, creating, and maintaining the design system in Figma, auditing existing design assets, collaborating with UX and front-end developers, developing documentation and guidelines, setting governance standards, and providing training. This role demands a strong understanding of component-driven design, token-based systems, and accessibility standards. You will need to demonstrate excellent communication and collaboration skills, along with a passion for design excellence and scalable solutions. The ideal candidate will have 6+ years of UX/design experience, including at least 3 years focused on design systems, and expert-level Figma skills.

Requirements

• 6+ years of experience in UX/design with at least 3 years focused on design systems
• Expert-level Figma skills, including libraries, variables, auto-layout, component variants, and prototyping
• Strong understanding of component-driven design, token-based systems, and scalable architecture
• Experience collaborating with engineering teams to align design and code (e.g., via Storybook or equivalent frameworks)
• Ability to distill complex ideas into clear, documented patterns and workflows
• Knowledge of accessibility standards (WCAG) and how they apply to design systems
• Strong communication, facilitation, and stakeholder management skills
• Strong collaboration mindset—You enjoy working cross-functionally and thrive in a team-oriented environment
• Creative leadership experience—Mentorship, critique, and a passion for elevating design teams
• Exposure to motion design, microinteractions, or front-end development principles
• Experience with mobile user experience and mobile application design patterns

Responsibilities

• Lead the definition, creation, and maintenance of the design system in Figma, including atomic elements, components, templates, and tokens
• Audit existing design artifacts to define scalable patterns and reusable components
• Collaborate with UX designers to ensure consistency and alignment across all digital products
• Partner with front-end developers to ensure accurate translation of components from Figma to code (e.g., Storybook or equivalent)
• Develop and maintain documentation, usage guidelines, and best practices for system adoption
• Set governance standards and processes to manage design debt and contributions to the system
• Facilitate training and onboarding for designers and developers on how to use the system effectively
• Ensure accessibility and global brand standards are built into the system from the ground up

Preferred Qualifications

• History leading design teams in healthcare, pharmaceuticals or other highly-regulated industries
• Understanding of contemporary development processes and familiarity with the possibilities and deployment of modern front-end libraries and frameworks