Location: San Jose, CA or Boise, ID
Clearwater Analytics delivers a unified, front-to-back investment management platform for institutional investors across public and private markets. Our platform, including products like Beacon by Clearwater andEnfusionby Clearwater, supports the full investment lifecycle - front office portfolio and order management, trading, and risk and performance; middle andback officeaccounting, reporting, and reconciliation; and compliance and investment data management. Clearwater powers more than $10 trillion in assets for 2,400+ clients worldwide, including asset managers, insurers, hedge funds, corporations, banks, pensions, and public sector institutions. A strong, well-governed design system is core to how we scale great design across this large, fast-growing platform.
We're looking for a Staff UX Designer, Design Systems to own the strategy, craft, and execution of Clearwater's design system. This is a senior, hands-on leadership role: you'll set the vision for the system, design and help build its components and tokens, and drive adoption across product teams. Reporting to the VP, Head of UX, you'll be the primary voice for design systems at Clearwater and a key partner to engineering leadership.
This role requires more than systems thinking in Figma. You must be strong in visual/UI craft and comfortable working in code - contributing to or pairing closely with engineers on component libraries, design tokens, and front-end implementation - so that what ships in production matches the system's intent. Proven, hands-on experience building and deploying a design system in a live product is required.
Increasingly,ourdesignsystemneeds to serve builders beyond the design team - engineers, PMs, and AI coding agents generating UI directly from our components and tokens. You'll treat the design system as enablement infrastructure for anyone building on Clearwater's platform.
Designandhelp build core components, patterns, and design tokens - working hands-on in both Figma and code (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and component frameworks such as React) so design and implementation stay in lockstep.
Own the Figma-to-Storybook component library workflow,ensuringcomponents, variants, and documentation stay synchronized between design and the published library engineers build against.
Make the design system machine-consumable - structured component specs, tokens, and documentation that AI coding tools can pull from directly (e.g., an MCP-style integration), so AI-generated UI is on-brand by construction rather than by review.
Define guardrails and validation (audits, eval criteria, automated checks) that catch off-system or off-brand output from AI-assisted or non-designer contributors at scale, not just from formal design reviews.
Collaborate closely with Product Designers, Visual Designers, Interaction Designers, and Engineers to ensure the system supports dense, data-heavy enterprise workflows (tables, dashboards, reporting, complex forms).
Track and report on design system health: adoption rate, component coverage, contribution velocity, and design/engineering consistency.
Strong UI development skills: proficiency in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, with working knowledge of component-based front-end frameworks (e.g., React), and comfort contributing to or pairing closely with engineers on the system's codebase.
Experience making a design system consumable by non-designers or AI tooling (structured documentation, APIs/MCPs, or similar), not just human-facing Figma/Storybook libraries.
Strong visual design craft - typography, layout, color, spacing, and interaction states - and the ability to apply it to dense, enterprise B2B interfaces.
Experience designing for enterprise SaaS or data-heavy/fintech products (tables, dashboards, complex forms, reporting).
Front-end/UI development (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, component frameworks, Claude Code)
What we offer:
Business casual atmosphere in a flexible working environment
Team-focused culture that promotes innovation and ownership
Access cutting-edge investment reporting technology and expertise
Defined and undefined career pathways, allowing you to grow your way
Competitive medical, dental, vision, and life insurance benefits
Maternity and paternity leave
Personal Time Off and Volunteer Time Off to give back to the community
RSUs, as well as an employee stock purchase plan and a 401 (k) with a match
Work from anywhere 3 weeks out of the year
Work from home Fridays
Why Join Us? This is an incredible opportunity to lead a passionate engineering team that is shaping the future of investment management technology. If you're ready to take your career to the next level and make a significant impact, apply now!