Principal Product Designer, Design Systems & AI

Job description

Summary: Anaconda's Design organization now owns our design system end to end, from Figma libraries and design tokens through to the code components engineers ship. We're mid-flight on a migration of our component architecture to a modern stack, converging two product surfaces into one platform, and defining how a design practice works in an agentic AI world. As our Principal Product Designer, you'll own the design system as a product: its architecture, its governance, and its evolution across converging surfaces. You'll partner directly with engineering to land the migration, then build the AI-forward design practice on top of it: the patterns, tooling, and workflows for designing agentic product experiences. This is a senior IC role reporting to the VP of Design, operating with wide autonomy in a deliberately flat, senior team. What You'll Do: Own the design system end to end: design tokens, component libraries, documentation, and the code components engineers consume, across two converging product surfaces. Lead the migration of our component architecture to a modern stack (shadcn/ui, Storybook), partnering with engineering to re-baseline scope and ship a complete, production-quality tranche. Define the governance that outlives any individual: versioning, contribution model, release process, and explicit exit criteria for design handoff that both design and engineering sign. Establish Anaconda's AI-forward design practice: patterns, guidelines, and tooling for agentic product surfaces, and ship the first product experiences that use them. Work in design and code: prototype in the production stack and review component implementations. Raise the bar across a senior design team through influence: critique, pairing, and visible craft. Use AI-assisted tools, including Claude Code, reviewing and validating AI generated output before it ships. Your Impact Will Be Measured Through: Completion and adoption of the component architecture migration across both product surfaces. Reduction in design-to-engineering handoff time and rework, measured against explicit exit criteria. Cross-team adoption of design system governance: versioned releases, contribution model, and shared definition of done. AI-forward design patterns shipped in production surfaces and reused across the platform. What You Need: 12+ years of product design experience, including several years owning a design system at scale, tokens, component architecture, and governance, not only consumption. Engineering fluency: comfortable working in TypeScript/React component codebases and Storybook, and applied in technical architecture discussions. Proven experience leading a design system migration or re-platform in a production environment, including scoping what ships and what parks. Demonstrated experience designing AI-driven or agentic product experiences. Experience using AI assisted tools, such as Claude Code, as part of a professional workflow, including reviewing and validating AI generated output before it ships. A track record of leading through influence in flat or ambiguous structures, defining the operating model rather than executing within one. What Will Make You Stand Out: You've taken a design system through a framework migration at enterprise scale and can walk us through what you kept, cut, and parked — and why. Contributions to open-source design systems or component libraries, with public work you can show. Experience designing for developer tools, data science, or technical audiences. You've built design tooling or automation — internal tools, Figma plugins, or AI-assisted design workflows — that other designers adopted. Experience working across converging or multi-product platforms where the design system was the connective tissue. A clear point of view on how AI is reshaping design practice, shaped by hands-on work designing agentic experiences. You embody our values: "Curious by Default", "Build Together", "Own It", and "Lead with Guts and Heart", and our behaviors: Clarity, Care and Candor. You care deeply about fostering an environment where people of all backgrounds and experiences can flourish. Why You'll Like Working Here: You'll thrive in a high-performance environment where results are recognized and rewarded Your work directly contributes to shaping the future of data science, machine learning, and AI in the enterprise. You'll work alongside a collaborative team that values diverse, thoughtful discussion, clarity and candor. You'll be supported by a culture that puts employees first - with flexible hours, a fully remote setup, and a genuine commitment to your wellbeing and growth. The applicants will be reviewed on an ongoing basis until the role is filled. In addition to base salary, we offer a comprehensive benefits package that includes: Flexible Vacation Policy Medical, Dental, and Vision Insurance Income Protection Insurance Paid Parental Leave Monthly Wellness Stipend Mental Health Resources An Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, or protected veteran status and will not be discriminated against on the basis of disability. Anaconda, Inc. (“We”, “Us”) are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. This Privacy Notice sets out the basis on which the personal data collected from you, or that you provide to Us, will be processed by Us in connection with Our recruitment processes. By clicking “Submit Application”, you acknowledge you have read our Privacy Policy and that Anaconda can retain your application data for up to 1-year, unless otherwise stated. For the purpose of the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) ”) and the version of the GDPR retained in UK law (the “UK GDPR”) the Data Controller is Vanessa Macilwaine. Anaconda is an EEO/AA employer M/F/V/D. About Anaconda Be at the center of AI Anaconda is built to advance AI with open source at scale, giving builders and organizations the confidence to increase productivity, and save time, spend and risk associated with open source. 95% of the Fortune 500 including Panasonic, AmTrust, Booz Allen Hamilton and over 50 million users rely on the value The Anaconda AI Platform delivers through a centralized approach to sourcing, securing, building, and deploying AI. With 21 billion downloads and growing, Anaconda has established itself as the gold standard for Python, data science, and AI and the enterprise-ready solution of choice for AI innovation. Anaconda is backed by world-class investors including Insight Partners. Learn more at .