Design Systems Lead

Slack

Denver, Colorado, U.S.

We're hiring a Design Lead to join Slack and drive the vision, strategy, roadmap, build and implementation of Slack’s Design System of UI components, icons, language & interaction patterns across mobile and desktop, called Slack Kit. 

We’re looking for someone that will take a systems-mindset to build and integrate consistent, efficient components across the product portfolio with emphasis on the complete systems life-cycle, from establishing a practice and vision that endures to design, build, document, and maintain a library used by many product teams.

With a focus on accessibility and inclusion, you will work with your engineering partners to create Color, Type and Iconographic systems that support the wide range of uses across Slack’s ecosystem. You will lead the creation and implementation of resources, tools and documentation that supports the design system and be responsible for building and maintaining cross functional relationships across the company and evangelizing the adoption of the system. You will also be providing design leadership and guidance to teams around using shared patterns, and identifying opportunities to create new patterns and components within their workstreams. 

As a Systems Lead, you should have experience contributing to lower-level decision making, direct broader strategy, and observe when narrower efforts conflict with or distract from broader goals.

What you'll be doing

Lead the design and implementation of SlackKit’s visual language including typography, color, iconography and componentry and the tools, resources and documentations to support the system.
Continuously conduct end-to-end audits of our UI, visuals and design system, come up with designs to solve for discrepancies and push the visual design system forward, while considering Slack’s brand and Mac, iOS, Android, Windows design guidelines.
Maintain SlackKit’s Figma libraries for desktop and mobile
Direct scope of systems concerns and relevant products to adopt it.
Maintain and improve a contribution model to streamline the process of multiple autonomous product teams building components for one-off use cases, moving to systematized items.
Identify, prioritize, and monitor task, progress of design, development, and documentation across team members.
Present the system’s mission, library, and process to other groups, including product managers, content specialists, QA, and other design and development teams throughout the enterprise. 
Report team and system progress regularly to key stakeholders and the rest of the organization.
Provide design leadership and guidance to teams around using shared patterns, and identify opportunities to create new patterns and components within their workstreams
Provide a thinking and implementation framework for accessibility and inclusion in both the design and development process.  
Hold retrospectives & gather input from director-level peers of product design and development teams.
Conduct regular one-on-one reviews with team members to identify successes, challenges, perspectives and preferences.
Identify and nurture team growth and culture, identifying opportunities for team members to drive and lead system aspects.

What you should have:

Portfolio that highlights design systems you have created or largely contributed to
Proven experience designing and launching for both desktop and mobile environments
Deep understanding of how to create usable, accessible, and modular designs that can scale to millions of users.
Experience working and collaborating with diverse teams in a dynamic, rapid-growth environment.
Track record of creating and managing impactful design systems and processes.
6+ years experience in one or more of: interaction design and/or information architecture. Bonus if experience on product management of web-based sites and/or applications, front end development, or business analysis.

Slack is registered as an employer in many, but not all, states. If you are not located in or able to work from a state where Slack is registered, you will not be eligible for employment.Visa sponsorship may not be available in certain remote locations.

Visa sponsorship is not available for candidates living outside the country of this position.

The base pay range targeted for this role is $160,833 - $193,000. This base pay range is for illustrative purposes only. This position is eligible for additional compensation and benefits including: incentive compensation; health benefits; flexible spending account; retirement benefits; life insurance; commuter benefits; paid time off (including PTO, emergency time off, paid sick leave, medical leave, volunteer time off, civic duty leave, bereavement leave, floating holidays and paid holidays); parental leave and benefits; mobile phone and internet allowance; perks stipend; and other employee perks and benefits. 

The actual offer, reflecting the total compensation package and benefits, will be at the company’s sole discretion, and determined by a myriad of factors including, but not limited to, years of experience, depth of experience, and other relevant business considerations. The company also reserves the right to amend or modify employee perks and benefits at any time.