Product Design Lead - US Tech Solutions, Inc.

Job Description
Product Design Lead Design System We are seeking a 6-month contract Product Design Lead to develop and evolve our UX Design System within existing brand standards and usability best practices. The immediate focus will be to complete the component libraries for company s Consumer Digital teams delivering the Figma designs and documentation while coordinating with developer partners to code and push components to squads. In addition, you will lead the definition of common components and design patterns that will bring our design principles and brand strategy to life across our consumer digital ecosystem. The ideal candidate will have strong product management and project management skills and will balance many considerations to identify and prioritize opportunities to increase the consistency of our customer s experience. Exceptional collaboration skills are also required to facilitate alignment on system components and drive adoption of the system across many teams. To be successful in this role, you must have the ability to fluently communicate in the vernacular of Design, Business and Technology and effectively translate across all three. We are approaching our design system as a product, so a deep understanding of digital design, UX, documentation, and the product development and creative processes are essential for success.

Responsibilities:

• Define Standards: Gather input across all product portfolios to mature and continue defining a Design System that is viable, scalable and which strengthens the brand through consistency. Lead a cross-portfolio, multi-disciplinary guild of team members who all contribute to the evolution of the system. Drive decision-making on system standards and exceptions.
• Product Management: Using Jira in collaboration with the developer team, manage and prioritize the backlog and roadmap of system components and features. Balance delivering minimum useful functionality with properly scalable system design. Challenge the team on what to automate vs manually perform. Partner with Product Owners, designers, and developers to define the scope and timing of implementation.
• Drive Excellence: Define and direct the process for evolving the system over time. Align research activity to assess the efficacy of the system. Implement and facilitate ongoing reviews to assess the quality, consistency and usefulness of system components. Schedule and facilitate regular meetings for critique, planning, and review of new work.
• Communication: Ensure all team members have access to the tools and guidelines they need to adopt the system. Gather input regularly from team members and key stakeholders to identify successes, challenges and perspectives. Synthesize findings into specific recommendations to fuel the backlog and roadmap. Represent the system s purpose, library and process to other groups throughout the enterprise as needed.
• Contract Primary Scope Delivery (Existing):
  • 10 existing stories that have design dependencies
  • 16 existing component updates (e.g., Input, Dropdown) these updates range from altering color for ADA compliance to redefining dynamic sizing/flexibility to adding additional functionality/states
  • Design specific tasks not directly impacting the Design System:
    • Update Figma library of 395 components (and documentation) that are currently being used in production. This number will grow to include Figma components that are in-progress and in-queue for development
    • Complete the design and documentation of the current 9 in-progress components in Figma. Each of these files could have many different individual Figma components with multiple states (e.g., hover, active/inactive, error)
    • Work through Figma backlog, prioritizing components with Accessibility requirements

• Contract Secondary Scope Delivery (Anticipated)
  • Any new ADA remediation required
  • New requests related to component updates

Qualifications:

• Hands-on experience and thorough understanding of Figma, Figma component design and design system best practices (variants and interactivity for prototyping at component level) including a working knowledge of front-end technologies such as CSS, HTML and Javascript, and the desire to learn more.
• Prior experience launching design systems and working with technical teams is required.
• Exceptional communication skills and the ability to articulate design decisions and rationale with clarity and objectivity. This includes the ability to explain changes to squads and ensure changes are being represented in experiences.
• Experience presenting to diverse audiences including senior leadership.

• Experience establishing the roll-out of updates and communicating with design team so they can update components respectively

• Strong analytical thinking skills with the proven ability to synthesize and reconcile complex, interdependent and sometimes competing requirements.
• Thorough understanding of human-centered design principles, methods and practices, and experience collaborating closely with UX designers.
• Change management experience, including a track record of developing new processes and fostering mindset changes with teams.
• Experience navigating and influencing within large organizations

About US Tech Solutions:
US Tech Solutions is a global staff augmentation firm providing a wide range of talent on-demand and total workforce solutions. To know more about US Tech Solutions, please visit www.ustechsolutions.com .

US Tech Solutions is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, colour, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or status as a protected veteran.