Skip to content

Sr Staff Frontend Engineer, Design Systems

223k – 278kSan Francisco, CAHybrid8+ YOE
Summary

Lead the Builder Enablement team owning Gusto's design system (Workbench) and AI tooling that enables engineers, designers, PMs, and AI agents to ship high-quality products. Requires 8+ years engineering experience with 5+ years in engineering management, fluency with AI developer tooling, and strong TypeScript/React skills.

About the role

Responsibilities

  • Lead and grow a team of senior engineers working at the frontier of design systems and AI-assisted development
  • Partner with Design and Product leads as the engineering half of the leadership triad to set strategy for AI tooling, design system, and builder support
  • Guide the team's use of AI across workflows, running weekly experiments, building evals, and making investment decisions
  • Conduct 1:1s, coaching, and career development for direct reports
  • Collaborate with other engineering leaders across Core Experiences and the AI platform to align on shared tooling and platform direction
  • Represent Builder Enablement with senior leadership, partner teams, and the broader builder community through office hours and support threads
  • Own the team's technical strategy at a directional level: adoption of AI ecosystems (MCP, agent skills, eval frameworks), design system architecture, accessibility standards, and publishing/release tooling

Requirements

  • 8+ years of professional software engineering experience, with at least 5 years leading engineering teams
  • Track record of empowering senior engineers and tech leads
  • Strong product sense and ability to work closely with Design and Product partners to shape strategy
  • Hands-on fluency with modern AI developer tooling (MCP servers, agent skills, Claude Code / Cursor, prompt engineering, evals)
  • Experience with frontend platforms, design systems, or horizontal/shared infrastructure
  • Comfort with TypeScript, React, and modern frontend ecosystems
  • Experiment-driven leadership style: comfortable framing hypotheses, scoping small tests, and making decisions based on evidence
  • Strong written and verbal communication skills
  • Comfortable navigating ambiguity, fluctuating requirements, and a large stakeholder surface area

Nice-to-Haves

  • Experience teaching AI agents to use design systems correctly
  • Background running eval systems that measure AI output quality against design system standards
  • Experience with prototyping environments and sandboxes for realistic component testing
Skills
TypeScriptReactDesign SystemsMCP ServersPrompt EngineeringAI Agent SkillsEval FrameworksFrontend Platform ArchitectureAccessibility StandardsClaude CodeCursor
Similar roles at this salary range
All Engineering Management jobs →
Shield AI

Mechanical Engineering Sr. Manager - Avionics

Lead a team of mechanical engineers designing electro-mechanical avionics systems for next-generation autonomous UAVs, including packaging, thermal management, and integration into the X-BAT aircraft. Requires 10+ years aerospace mechanical/electrical design experience and CAD/FEA expertise.

185k – 278kSan Diego, CA +1Engineering ManagementOn-site10+ YOENXFEA
1Password

Engineering Manager, Authentication Services

Manage the Authentication Services engineering team responsible for secure authentication experiences, sign-in, and identity verification services. Drive technical vision, execution, hiring, and team scaling in a remote-first environment.

190k – 278kUnited StatesEngineering ManagementRemote5+ YOEHiringCoaching
Instacart

Senior Engineering Manager, Privacy Security

Lead and scale a Privacy Engineering team responsible for privacy-by-design solutions, data lifecycle management, and compliance tooling across Instacart's platform. Requires 12+ years privacy engineering experience and 5+ years managing senior engineers.

221k – 279kUnited StatesEngineering ManagementRemote12+ YOEGDPRCCPA
Databricks

Head of AI Forward Deployed Engineering , Public Sector

Lead and scale the AI Forward Deployed Engineering team for public sector customers, driving AI transformation engagements, building executive relationships, and shaping product and GTM strategy. Requires deep ML/GenAI expertise, proven team leadership, and a graduate degree or equivalent.

233k – 320kMaryland +2Engineering ManagementHybrid8+ YOEAWSAzure
Rippling

Senior Engineering Manager, AI Developer Experience

Lead the AI Developer Experience team building productivity platforms, AI-powered workflows, and tooling to accelerate 1,000+ engineers. Requires 8+ years engineering experience and 4+ years management.

207k – 362kSan Francisco, CA +2Engineering ManagementHybrid8+ YOECI/CDBuild systems