Design Lead, Design Systems

About the role

You'll own the design system and produce the work that proves what it's capable of. As our Design Lead, Design Systems, you're responsible for the design system infrastructure across Closet by Design, Closet World, and Brio Water, and for the executional design work that sets the quality benchmark every team can see, build from, and ship. This isn't a role where systems thinking exists in isolation from craft, or where craft stops at the Figma file. You'll think in systems, execute at a high level, and work closely with engineering to make sure quality follows the design all the way out the door.

Own and Evolve the Design System

• Build, maintain, and evolve a unified but brand-flexible design system, components, tokens, guidelines, and documentation, that serves all three UX product teams
• Audit the current design state across brands, identify system gaps and inconsistencies, and create a roadmap to close them
• Define component architecture, versioning, contribution workflows, and governance processes so the system scales as the team and products grow
• Establish system architecture that supports speed without sacrificing consistency, so teams can move quickly without drifting from the standards

Execute High-Quality Visual Design Work

• Produce polished, high-fidelity visual work across all three brands, both production-ready assets and forward-looking concept work that shows the team where the bar is
• Lead the visual design execution for Closet World, bringing the craft and vision to elevate the brand's digital experience and build the foundation the rest of the team can reference and grow from
• Create the kind of work that sets the benchmark, not to keep it to yourself, but to show the team what excellent looks like and make it the new normal

Think Forward and Push the Quality Bar

• Develop future-state design concepts and explorations that show what each brand experience can become, not just what it is today
• Challenge assumptions in the current experience; bring fresh eyes, strong conviction, and the craft to back it up
• Keep the team and leadership aligned on where design is headed, not just where it currently stands

Partner with Engineering to Ship Quality

• Work closely with engineering to ensure that what gets designed gets built right, own the design-to-dev handoff with care, precision, and a clear quality standard
• Maintain spec fidelity through implementation; be the design voice in the build, not just the file, review shipped work and close quality gaps directly
• Build and refine token pipelines and handoff documentation that make it easy for engineers to implement components correctly the first time
• Foster a strong design-engineering relationship, the kind where both sides understand each other's constraints and the shipped product reflects the intended design

Support and Elevate the UX Teams

• Partner closely with UX designers embedded across each brand to ensure system adoption is real and the work is strong, not just documented
• Provide design direction, feedback, and executional support to elevate the output of the broader team
• Make it easy for designers to use the system well, through clear documentation, reusable templates, and regular hands-on collaboration

Move Fast Without Losing Quality

• Work in Figma and across the best available tooling to iterate at the speed the business requires
• Balance fast-turn requests from brand teams with long-term system integrity, know when to move and when to hold the standard
• Operate with ownership and autonomy, you don't wait to be told what needs improving

What We're Looking For

Experience

• 8+ years of design experience, with at least 3 years in a lead or senior IC role with direct design system ownership
• A portfolio that demonstrates both strong design system work and strong visual design execution, you need to show us you can do both, not just one
• Experience working across multiple brands or products simultaneously, with a track record of maintaining system coherence across varied contexts
• E-commerce, consumer products, or DTC background strongly preferred
• Deep proficiency in Figma, variables, tokens, auto-layout, component architecture, and prototyping, and fluency with the broader tooling ecosystem
• Demonstrated track record of close engineering collaboration, you've done the full cycle: designed it, handed it off, reviewed the build, and driven it to the right quality

Skills

• Exceptional visual design craft, you have a strong point of view on what looks and feels right, and you can execute it at the highest level
• Systems thinker who can architect a design system from principles to production and communicate it clearly to developers and non-designers alike
• Comfortable producing a wide range of output: component documentation, high-fidelity UX flows, brand-level concept work, and future-state visions
• Strong design-to-engineering collaboration, comfortable reviewing live implementations, giving precise feedback in build contexts, and working directly with developers to close the gap between design intent and shipped product
• Craft-driven brand thinking, the ability to use design not just to solve UX problems, but to push a brand forward: elevate how it looks, how it feels, and how it's experienced across every touchpoint
• Able to give and receive direct design feedback with confidence and clarity
• Self-directed and organized, you can manage work across three active brands and multiple system tracks without losing threads

Mindset

• Driven by craft, you genuinely care about the quality of the output, very detailed oriented, not just the process; quality means what's shipped, not just what's in the file
• Ownership-oriented, you see a gap and close it; you see a problem and fix it; you don't wait for someone to tell you where to look
• Energized by raising the bar, making the team better, making the work better, and building something that outlasts your individual contributions
• Collaborative without losing your point of view, you'll give direct design feedback, push back when the work isn't there yet, and advocate strongly for what good looks like
• Partnership-minded with engineering, you understand that great design only matters when it ships right, and you take ownership of the handoff as seriously as the design itself
• Comfortable working at speed without sacrificing quality, you know how to make smart trade-offs and you move accordingly

Nice to Have

• Experience building a design system from near-zero (greenfield) state
• Familiarity with design token pipelines and design-to-dev handoff tooling (Style Dictionary, Theo, etc.)
• Background in brand identity or brand systems work across multiple consumer brands
• Experience working across retail + DTC simultaneously
• Exposure to front-end implementation concepts, enough to speak engineering's language fluently and catch implementation issues on sight

Why This Role

• You'll own something that matters. The design system is the infrastructure that every brand experience runs on, getting it right has real, visible business impact across three growing consumer brands
• There's a significant opportunity to make your mark. Closet World has the audience, the business momentum, and the investment to support a real step-change in design quality, and this role is the engine that drives that forward
• Direct visibility to leadership. What you build here goes to the Creative Director and brand leadership, not into a backlog
• You'll have the tools and the latitude. We're investing in the right tooling and giving this person the autonomy to set direction, not just execute against someone else's spec
• Path to grow. As design systems scale and the brand design bar rises, this role grows with it