Staff Product Designer – Design Systems

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in United States.

📋 Description

• Lead the strategic direction, development, and implementation of Alpaca, ensuring its scalability to meet the demands of a rapidly expanding, AI-focused product organization.

• Enhance the design system to accommodate AI and agent product patterns, including agent chat and canvas experiences, as well as components that must adjust based on runtime or model context.

• Collaborate with product designers and engineers across all product teams to define, document, and deliver new components, patterns, and guidelines.

• Create and refine governance models, contribution frameworks, and quality standards that enable every designer at Vanta to build consistently, particularly for AI-native surfaces that deviate from traditional static component design.

• Promote design system adoption through education, tooling, and proactive collaboration, particularly with teams developing agentic features who may be unfamiliar with systems thinking.

• Represent the Design Systems and AI Patterns initiatives in cross-functional forums, effectively translating system-level trade-offs for engineering and product leadership.

• Mentor other designers, including senior team members, on systems thinking, component architecture, and best practices for designing effectively within (and challenging) a shared system.

• Champion accessibility and inclusive design as a core requirement across all components, patterns, and documentation.

⛳️ Requirements

• 7+ years of experience as a product designer, with significant expertise in design systems, preferably within complex B2B SaaS environments.

• Profound knowledge in building and evolving scalable design systems, including component architecture, design tokens, and pattern libraries, as well as a strong perspective on necessary adaptations for AI and agentic product surfaces.

• Strong foundation in visual design, with mastery in typography, color theory, spacing, interaction design, and accessibility principles. This role demands high craftsmanship, not just governance.

• Ability to navigate ambiguity, particularly where organizational boundaries (e.g., between Design Systems and AI/Agent product work) are not clearly defined, and the judgment to help shape that structure proactively.

• Experience collaborating closely with front-end engineers, possessing sufficient fluency in front-end code to assess design-to-code fidelity credibly, and ideally contributing directly.

• Expert-level proficiency in Figma, including variants, auto-layout, and design tokens, with experience in publishing and managing shared libraries at scale.

• Strong interpersonal skills: the capability to influence without direct authority, foster alignment among designers, engineers, and leadership with competing priorities, and clearly communicate system-level trade-offs to both technical and non-technical audiences.

• A proven track record of mentoring fellow designers and enhancing the craft and systems literacy of those around you.

• Must have authorization to work in the U.S. without the need for current or future employer sponsorship.

• Willingness to utilize AI to enhance skills and improve work quality, showcasing curiosity, a desire to learn, and sound judgment in applying AI responsibly to boost efficiency and impact.

🏝️ Benefits

• Industry-competitive salary and equity.

• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage, with 100% of employee-only benefit premiums covered for most medical plans.

• 16 weeks of paid Parental Leave for all new parents.

• Health & wellness stipend.

• Remote workspace, internet, and cellphone stipend.

• Commuter benefits for team members reporting to the SF and NYC offices.

• Family planning benefits.

• Matching 401(k) contribution with immediate vesting.

• Flexible PTO policy, along with 80 hours of Sick Time.

• 11 company-paid holidays.

• Virtual team-building activities, lunch and learns, and other company-wide events!