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Design System Jobs in California (NOW HIRING)

At CourtAvenue, the Design Director, Platform UI leads the visual interface layer of our most ... This is a role for a visual and systems craftsperson who thrives in the constraints of real ...

Design Director, Platform UI

San Diego, CA

$164K - $202K/yr

At CourtAvenue, the Design Director, Platform UI leads the visual interface layer of our most ... This is a role for a visual and systems craftsperson who thrives in the constraints of real ...

This isn't a maintenance or systems stewardship role. It's a transformative one. You'll work at the frontier of what design and engineering collaboration looks like when AI writes most of the code ...

Design Director

San Jose, CA · On-site

$142 - $233/hr

You will be central to operationalizing our design system, educating internal teams and agency partners on guidelines, ensuring best-in-class application across touchpoints, and helping the ...

You will be central to operationalizing our design system, educating internal teams and agency partners on guidelines, ensuring best-in-class application across touchpoints, and helping the ...

This isn't a maintenance or systems stewardship role. It's a transformative one. You'll work at the frontier of what design and engineering collaboration looks like when AI writes most of the code ...

No handoffs, no waiting, you ship the whole thing. • Own the design system: We have a component library built on Radix UI, Tailwind CSS, and tailwind-variants. You'll evolve it as the product grows ...

Own the design system end-to-end: design tokens, a shadcn/ui-based component library, and Tailwind CSS conventions applied consistently across the product suite. * Define and enforce frontend ...

You understand design systems, but your superpower is building the backend services, APIs, and data models that allow those systems to scale. Your work will help ensure our design tools, AI agents ...

Showing results 41-60

Design System information

What does a design system do?

A professional in a Design System role typically spends their days creating and maintaining design components, documenting usage guidelines, and collaborating closely with designers and developers to ensure consistency across products. They may facilitate design critiques, conduct audits of existing interfaces, and advocate for best practices in design and code implementation. Regular communication with product, engineering, and accessibility teams is common to address evolving needs and ensure that the system remains scalable and effective. This collaborative and detail-oriented work is essential for supporting efficient product development and delivering a unified user experience.

What is a design system?

A Design System job involves creating and maintaining a structured set of design guidelines, reusable components, and coding standards to ensure consistency across digital products. Professionals in this role collaborate with designers, developers, and product teams to build scalable UI frameworks that enhance efficiency and usability. Their responsibilities may include defining design tokens, documenting best practices, and ensuring seamless integration of the system into various projects.

What are the key skills and qualifications needed to thrive in the design system position, and why are they important?

To thrive as a Design System Specialist, you should have a strong background in user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) design, knowledge of component-driven development, and experience with front-end technologies such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Familiarity with design tools like Figma, Adobe XD, as well as version control systems and documentation platforms is highly valuable. Excellent communication, collaboration, and problem-solving skills are essential for working effectively with cross-functional teams and stakeholders. These abilities help ensure consistency, scalability, and usability across digital products, which are critical for a cohesive brand and efficient development workflows.

What are the most commonly searched types of Design System jobs in California?

The most popular types of Design System jobs in California are:

What are popular job titles related to Design System jobs in California?

For Design System jobs in California, the most frequently searched job titles are:

What job categories do people searching Design System jobs in California look for?

The top searched job categories for Design System jobs in California are:

What cities in California are hiring for Design System jobs?

Cities in California with the most Design System job openings:

Infographic showing various Design System job openings in California as of August 2026, with employment types broken down into 1% As Needed, 82% Full Time, 13% Part Time, 2% Temporary, and 2% Contract. Highlights an 92% Physical, 2% Hybrid, and 6% Remote job distribution.

Design Director, Platform UI

CourtAvenue

San Diego, CA

$150K - $180K/yr

Full-time

Posted 9 days ago


Job description

CourtAvenue is a company of industry experts accelerating digital transformation for the world’s most ambitious companies.
 
At CourtAvenue, you will be a part of a culture powered by entrepreneurs, technologists, data scientists and the habitually restless dedicated and energized to design products and services that transform businesses while optimizing them for growth. You will have the opportunity to learn and grow within a culture that values innovation while focusing on redesigning the experience between consumer and service (or product) by leveraging a fluid, seamless, and thoroughly transparent engagement.

At CourtAvenue, the Design Director, Platform UI leads the visual interface layer of our most complex platform engagements, building and evolving the components, design systems, and pixel-level interfaces that ship in production for years on enterprise client work. This is a role for a visual and systems craftsperson who thrives in the constraints of real platforms, real engineering teams, and real users. Not a brand or campaign designer.

You will partner closely with our Experience Strategy team, who own CX, UX, research, and information architecture. They will hand you validated foundations (flows, wireframes, IA) and you will take that work to a finished, system-aware, engineering-ready interface. You will also partner deeply with engineering, product management, and platform architects to ensure design ships at quality and at scale.

The work spans enterprise B2B SaaS, content and commerce platforms, and complex MarTech implementations for clients across telecom, retail, manufacturing, and other regulated enterprise environments. This is not consumer brand or campaign work.

Responsibilities
  • Own the visual interface layer of platform engagements, translating UX foundations from Experience Strategy into production-ready, system-aware UI.
  • Architect, evolve, and govern design systems and component libraries that engineering teams build against in production. Own component standards, design tokens, documentation, versioning, and contribution rituals.
  • Drive visual design quality and craft across typography, color, spacing, iconography, motion, and micro-interactions: the details that distinguish a polished platform from a passable one.
  • Partner deeply with engineering, product management, and platform architects as a peer, not a handoff partner. Participate in technical discussions, design within real platform constraints, and ensure shipped work matches design intent.
  • Partner with Experience Strategy as a defined upstream collaborator. Respect the boundary: they own UX and research; you own UI and visual systems. Push back, elevate, and translate, but do not redo their work.
  • Champion accessibility (WCAG 2.1 AA minimum) as a non-negotiable design discipline embedded in every component, every pattern, every review.
  • Establish and run design critique culture, design system governance, and the rituals that scale design quality across multiple concurrent engagements.
  • Inspire and manage the career growth, education, and skill development of a team of UI designers, including hiring, performance management, and mentorship.
  • Drive organic growth through trusted relationships with senior client stakeholders, presenting design rationale and platform vision to executive audiences in their language.
  • Maintain mastery of client presentations and non-creative communication, explaining visual and systems decisions to product, engineering, and business leadership without relying on design jargon.
  • Own quality across long-running engagements, designing for maintainability, scalability, and the next designer who inherits the system.
  • Stay on the pulse of platform UI, design system practice, accessibility standards, and emerging interface patterns; translate that fluency into client recommendations and internal capability.
Requirements
  • 8+ years of experience in digital product design, UI design, or visual/interface design, with at least 3 years specifically focused on product, platform, or B2B SaaS work (not brand, campaign, or marketing design).
  • Demonstrated experience in a design leadership role within an agency, consulting firm, or product company, including direct people management of designers.
  • Strong portfolio of shipped product interfaces, not campaign visuals, brand guidelines, or marketing site work. Case studies should evidence design system thinking, visual craft at the pixel level, and partnership with engineering.
  • Deep experience designing for enterprise platforms, B2B SaaS, MarTech, content and commerce platforms, telecom, financial services, or comparable regulated/enterprise environments. Consumer brand work alone is not a fit.
  • Mastery of Figma, including advanced component architecture, variables, auto-layout, and design system management. Familiarity with Storybook, Zeroheight, or similar design system documentation tools.
  • Working fluency in WCAG 2.1 AA standards and accessibility tooling. Adobe Creative Suite proficiency is a plus, not a requirement.
  • Track record of architecting or significantly contributing to design systems that engineering teams have adopted in production, including governance, versioning, and contribution models.
  • Experience as a downstream partner to UX, research, or experience strategy teams, comfortable receiving wireframes and flows and translating them into final UI without redoing the strategic work.
  • Excellent client-facing communication and the ability to present design rationale, system architecture, and platform vision to senior client stakeholders.
  • Strong organizational skills and the ability to lead design across multiple concurrent enterprise engagements while maintaining quality and team momentum.
  • Digital agency experience and background.
Work Environment
  • Our organization follows a structured-hybrid work model, where employees work in an office environment in the middle of the week and remotely on Mondays and Fridays.

  • Candidates for this position will ideally be located near one of our Midwest or Central offices:

    • Chicago, IL

    • Cincinnati, OH

    • Minneapolis, MN

    • Dallas, TX
  • Candidates near our Los Angeles and San Diego offices will be considered.

 
Final compensation will be determined based on total related experience as well as geography of the candidate selected.

CourtAvenue, INC. is an Equal Opportunity Employer. CourtAvenue recruits qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, status as a protected veteran, or genetic information.

CourtAvenue, INC. participates in the E-Verify program. In compliance with federal law, all persons hired will be required to verify identity and eligibility to work in the United States and to complete the required employment eligibility verification form (I-9) upon hire.


CourtAvenue, INC. is an Equal Opportunity Employer. CourtAvenue recruits qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, status as a protected veteran, or genetic information.

CourtAvenue, INC. participates in the E-Verify program. In compliance with federal law, all persons hired will be required to verify identity and eligibility to work in the United States and to complete the required employment eligibility verification form (I-9) upon hire.

We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses and identifying potential inconsistencies or verification signals in application materials based on available information. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us.