Senior Technical Lead - Enterprise Design System

About the Team

The design system is Vanguard's comprehensive design ecosystem, which includes:

• A coded, reusable UI component library
• Design and content guidelines
• A cross-platform design token system
• A design UI kit and supporting tooling for product teams

The design system enables teams across the company to build accessible, inclusive, and consistent digital experiences. As a Senior Technical Lead, you will play a critical role in its modernization, expansion, and architectural evolution.

Responsibilities

• Provide technical leadership to ensure the design system's architecture is modern, scalable, accessible, and aligned with industry best practices.
• Define and drive the future-state technical vision, including component architecture, design tokens, accessibility standards, and platform-aligned tooling.
• Lead major contributions to the next evolution of the system, improving discoverability, reducing duplication, and strengthening consistency across component libraries.
• Shape contribution and governance models that support distributed development and shared quality standards across teams.
• Identify modernization opportunities and support the creation of reusable patterns, reference architectures, and frameworks used enterprise-wide.
• Guide and review complex engineering solutions, resolve technical blockers, and uphold high standards for code quality and documentation.
• Partner closely with the mobile design-system team to ensure alignment across web and mobile platforms.
• Lead day-to-day technical execution, ensuring delivery of high-quality, maintainable, and accessible components and tooling.
• Collaborate with product and design partners to shape roadmaps and support broader modernization goals.
• Mentor engineers, promote engineering excellence, and foster a learning-focused and inclusive team culture.
• Explore emerging technologies and help drive continuous improvements in accessibility, automation, developer experience, and engineering standards.

Qualifications

• Deep proficiency in modern web development (TypeScript, HTML, SCSS) and component-driven architecture.
• Significant experience building or maintaining enterprise-scale design systems or component libraries.
• Strong experience with modern UI frameworks (Lit preferred; React, Angular, Vue, Svelte, or Stencil acceptable).
• Proven ability to lead architectural decisions, establish engineering standards, and drive modernization initiatives.
• Experience with design tokens, Storybook, automated testing, CI/CD pipelines, and WCAG-aligned accessibility practices.
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to influence without authority and articulate complex technical concepts to diverse stakeholders.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience contributing to large-scale or multi-platform design systems.
• Familiarity with modernization principles and reference architecture patterns.
• Experience with DevOps, SRE practices, or automated quality pipelines.
• Experience supporting design systems across web, mobile, and/or design-tool ecosystems.

Special Factors

Sponsorship
Vanguard is not offering visa sponsorship for this position.

About Vanguard

At Vanguard, we don't just have a mission-we're on a mission.

To work for the long-term financial wellbeing of our clients. To lead through product and services that transform our clients' lives. To learn and develop our skills as individuals and as a team. From Malvern to Melbourne, our mission drives us forward and inspires us to be our best.

How We Work

Vanguard has implemented a hybrid working model for the majority of our crew members, designed to capture the benefits of enhanced flexibility while enabling in-person learning, collaboration, and connection. We believe our mission-driven and highly collaborative culture is a critical enabler to support long-term client outcomes and enrich the employee experience.