Design Systems Lead

What You'll Do

Own the Design System Strategy

• Define and drive the long-term vision for Imprint's design system
• Create and maintain a roadmap that balances immediate product needs with long-term platform investments
• Establish governance, contribution models, and decision-making frameworks
• Ensure the system evolves in response to both business needs and emerging technologies

Lead and Develop the Team

• Mentor a small team of design systems designers and partner with developers
• Raise the bar on decision-making, prioritization, and systems thinking across the team
• Create clear ownership and accountability structures that increase efficiency
• Define success and report on progress, as well as any shifts on strategy
• Advocate for and educate on design systems across the org

Drive Cross-Functional Execution

• Partner deeply with Product Design to understand customer and business needs
• Collaborate closely with Engineering to ensure system components are scalable, maintainable, and production-ready
• Align design and engineering roadmaps around shared priorities
• Serve as the primary point of contact for design system strategy and adoption

Build for the Future

• Help define how AI transforms the way products are designed and built
• Explore new workflows that connect design systems, design tooling, code generation, and AI-assisted development
• Evolve our system beyond traditional Figma libraries and Storybook documentation toward machine-readable, AI-consumable foundations
• Evaluate emerging technologies and identify opportunities to increase leverage across the product development lifecycle

Stay Hands-On

• Contribute directly to design system work as needed
• Review and improve component architecture, documentation, patterns, and guidelines
• Lead complex initiatives from strategy through execution

What We're Looking For

Required

• 8+ years of product design experience, including significant design systems ownership
• Experience leading or managing design systems teams
• Demonstrated success building and scaling systems used across multiple product teams
• Strong product judgment and ability to prioritize high-impact work
• Deep understanding of design systems, component architecture, tokens, accessibility, and design-to-development workflows
• Experience partnering closely with frontend engineers and engineering leadership
• Excellent communication skills and ability to influence across functions

Nice to Have

• Experience with modern frontend technologies and component-based development
• Familiarity with Storybook, design tokens, and design system tooling
• Experience with AI-assisted design, code generation, or agent-driven workflows
• Background in design engineering or highly technical product environments
• Experience building systems in high-growth startup environments