Senior Product Designer (Design Systems)

Job description

Company Description SmartRecruiters is the Recruiting AI Company that transforms hiring for the world’s leading enterprises. Built for global scale, SmartRecruiters, an SAP company, delivers an AI-powered hiring platform that automates and optimizes the entire talent acquisition process, ensuring faster and smarter hiring decisions. More than 4,000 companies, including Amazon, Visa, and McDonald's, rely on SmartRecruiters to build winning teams. In 2025, SmartRecruiters joined SAP, the global leader in enterprise applications. Together, SmartRecruiters and SAP are accelerating the reinvention of hiring by combining cutting-edge AI innovation with the scale, reach, and resources of SAP’s ecosystem. At SmartRecruiters, we are a values-driven, globally focused tech company with strong financial backing and a bold vision for the future of work. We commit and dig deep, embracing challenges with grit, curiosity, and a drive for excellence. We foster a collaborative and inclusive work environment, where trust and determination bring us together. Because together, we will win. Recognized by Fosway Industry Analysts as a strategic leader in recruitment technology for three consecutive years, and awarded by Comparably as a top company for Women, Perks and Benefits, Work-Life Balance, Happiness, Compensation, Diversity, and Culture - we take pride in creating a place where everyone can thrive. Our remote-friendly culture, competitive salaries, and strong internal mobility ensure that high performers have meaningful growth opportunities in an environment built on respect and empowerment. Job Description We are looking for a Senior Product Designer to join the Design System team. In this role, you will own the design of components, patterns, and templates that scale across a complex product landscape, ensuring they are visually consistent, accessible, and ready for implementation. You will work embedded in a team with a Design Technologist and Engineers across domains such as Design Language, Design System Foundations, Accessibility, AI-powered workflows, and Front-end platform to define, evolve, and maintain the visual and interaction language on which the entire product is built. You will bring strong UI and interaction craft, a genuine care for accessibility, and the systems thinking needed to make decisions that hold up at scale. You are equally comfortable crafting a detailed component spec and collaborating with a developer on what is feasible in production. You will be proactive, thorough, and highly collaborative, working closely with Product Designers and Front-end Engineers in product teams to ensure the system reflects real needs and is adopted with confidence. Always looking for ways to make the system clearer, more consistent, and easier for every team to use. What you will do: Component, pattern and template design: Own the end-to-end design of system components, patterns, and templates, from concept through specification and handoff. Ensure every piece is visually consistent, interaction-sound, accessible, and implementation-ready Accessibility leadership: Champion WCAG 2.1/2.2 compliance across the design system. Partner with the Design Technologist to embed accessibility into component specs, documentation, and contribution workflows. Run accessibility reviews and raise the bar for inclusive design across the organization Design and code alignment: Collaborate closely with the Design Technologist and front-end engineers to ensure design decisions are technically feasible and faithfully implemented. Engage with Storybook, design tokens, and production components to close the loop between design intent and shipped product AI-powered design workflows: Actively use and contribute to AI-assisted design tools and workflows, from design-to-code handoff automation and token generation to AI-powered prototyping, helping the team work faster without sacrificing quality or consistency Documentation and governance: Create and maintain clear, thorough component documentation, usage guidelines, and contribution specs. Help product teams understand when and how to use system components and when to propose new ones Cross-functional collaboration and Design System advocacy: Act as a visible design system advocate across the organization, running presentations, sharing progress, and influencing how product teams adopt and contribute to the system. Collaborate across product design teams to understand emerging component needs and ensure consuming team voices shape system evolution Mentorship and feedback: Share expertise in design system craft, interaction design, and accessibility with peers. Provide structured, actionable feedback in design critiques and reviews. Contribute to a culture of continuous learning within the team Examples of deliverables: End-to-end component, pattern, and template designs with usage guidelines, interaction specs, and handoff documentation Defined and maintained design process for components, patterns, and templates, covering how they are proposed, designed, reviewed, and kept up to date Accessibility audits and remediation plans for components and product flows Design token definitions and theming specs in collaboration with the Design Technologist Interaction prototypes that validate component behavior and visual enhancements before engineering handoff Contribution guidelines and component request evaluations for product teams. Platform-wide design system audits and migration plans to drive full DS coverage across product surfaces Design critique feedback and structured reviews that elevate the craft of the broader team Documentation updates and usage guidance that help consuming teams work independently Qualifications 5+ years designing complex digital products, with meaningful time spent contributing to or owning a design system Proven experience working on a design system that goes beyond a Figma component library, including contribution models, documentation, governance, and design-to-code alignment Knowledge of AI-assisted design workflows such as design-to-code tools, prompt-based prototyping, or automation in the design process Strong visual and interaction design skills with a portfolio demonstrating high craft, attention to detail, and systems thinking Solid working knowledge of WCAG 2.1/2.2 and inclusive design principles. Comfortable auditing components and partnering with engineering to implement fixes Ability to design for scale, considering edge cases, responsive behavior, multi-platform contexts, and the downstream impact of every system decision Strong collaboration and communication skills, with experience presenting design decisions to cross-functional stakeholders Familiarity with HTML, CSS, and component-based architecture. Comfortable working in Storybook, GitHub, and understanding design token structures Additional Information SmartRecruiters is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics.