Lead Product Designer, Design Systems

Ripple is transforming the world of finance with innovative crypto solutions that increase access to financial services to people around the world.  As a Lead Product Designer for our Design System, you’ll ensure this emerging system will be best-in-class, applying your expert knowledge of accessible user interfaces and your top notch interaction and visual design skills.  We’re looking for someone with an infectious passion for design systems who is eager to partner with designers, engineers and writers to design foundational UI patterns, components, and tools.  This system will ensure that Ripple can deliver extraordinary experiences to our users at scale.

What You’ll Do

• Drive requirements gathering with designers and engineers that will lead to the design of flexible and extensible frameworks, patterns, and components
• Lead the design, documentation, and maintenance of Ripple’s design system and component library, maximizing the use of Figma and authoring tools
• Ensure consistent implementation of components in code across multiple product verticals
• Set a high quality standard for user interfaces across the board, inventorying inconsistencies and proposing the necessary improvements
• Incorporate usability feedback to improve component behavior and ensure user interactions are rock solid at the micro level
• Work with the brand design team to inject Ripple’s brand, visual and motion guidelines into user interfaces in a way that is elegant and delightful
• Develop usage guidelines that teach designers and engineers how to use components and patterns across design and code, and meet with team members regularly to ensure that their needs are met
• Develop easily adoptable and logical processes that enable and encourage other designers to regularly contribute to the system
• Prototype new design patterns so they can be understood, tested with users, and implemented
• Look for ways to bridge the gap between design and engineering, removing redundancies and inefficiencies in the end-to-end design-dev process
• Plan the roadmap for the design of new components and keep the team updated on the status of changes and improvements
• Stay current on the latest design system best practices and raise ideas that will create a competitive edge for Ripple
• Seek out opportunities to evangelize the Design System’s importance across the company in presentations, meetings, and other forums

What We’re Looking For

• 8+ years of experience of designing useful products for a variety of use cases
• 4+ years of experience designing for and maintaining scalable design systems, preferably for SaaS applications
• A proven track record and a strong portfolio featuring examples of your design work, your processes and methods, and the outcomes/results
• A variety of design skills that can be applied toward refining and evolving user experiences across the company
• Experience designing WCAG compliant, accessible interfaces
• Experience in front end development, specifically with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript (React)
• An effective collaborator with an orientation toward team-building and the enablement of coworkers to do their best work
• Able to move effortlessly between developing and communicating high-level strategies and executing the fine details
• Driven by a deep understanding of how products get used, advocating for research to validate UI patterns
• Bias toward action -- there’s tons of greenfield opportunity here, and you’ll need to lean into the ambiguity and find a path to completion
• Great verbal and written communicator with the ability to write copy that is human, clear and concise
• Crafts engaging presentations that clearly communicate design ideas and inspire both technical and non-technical people across the organization
• Invested in ensuring the visual aesthetics are executed flawlessly across the board, owning the detailed aspects of the UI like icon design and illustrations.
• Values over-communication, especially when working with remote coworkers located in different time zones across the globe
• Excited for the chance to shape the design culture at a growing company and to inspire people with your unique perspective

Preferred, but not required

• Experience working with data visualization frameworks
• Experience working with a design system from its early stages to its evolution and maturity

Bonus Points

• Fintech experience
• An interest in Cryptocurrency and Blockchain Technology