Design Systems Lead

Role:
Design Systems Lead

Location:

Sheffield Working Model:
Hybrid - 2 days a week in the office Salary:
Up to £70,000 Dependent on experience Build the system that powers everything else. This role is for someone who loves creating order, clarity, and momentum  a Design Systems Lead, youll take ownership of an established (or evolving) design system and shape it into something teams genuinely rely on. Your work will sit at the intersection of design and engineering, creating the foundations that help products ship faster, stay consistent, and scale with confidence.

This is a high-impact individual contributor role where your decisions will influence how designers design and how engineers build. What youll be doing Designing, building, and maintaining a design system that spans both design and code Creating reusable components, patterns, and guidelines in Figma Defining and managing design tokens (colour, spacing, typography, motion) Working closely with engineers to ensure design components map cleanly to coded components Setting clear standards for accessibility, responsiveness, and theming Producing clear documentation so teams know when and how to use the system Reducing UI and design decision fatigue so teams can move faster Evolving the system as the product, team, and complexity grow What were looking for You dont need to have done everything, but you must have real experience owning a design system.

Proven experience designing, scaling, or maintaining a design system in a product environment Expert-level Figma skills (components, variants, variables) Strong understanding of modern frontend development and component-based architectures (e.g. React) Experience partnering closely with engineers on shared component models A product-led mindset you design to solve real problems, not just to make things look good Comfort working in complex, data-heavy products A solid grounding in user-centred design and evidence-based decision making Nice to have (but not essential) Hands-on experience contributing to or implementing a coded design system Familiarity with tools like Storybook, Tailwind, or token-based theming Background in B2B, industrial, or technically complex products We welcome diverse applicants and are dedicated to treating all applicants with dignity and respect, regardless of background.