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Salary: USD 178,500 - 178,500 / annual
DuckDuckGo is seeking a Senior Product Designer, Design Systems to establish and lead the company's design system from the ground up. This is a founding role with the opportunity to define both the position and roadmap at a pivotal moment for the organization.
You will take ownership of DuckDuckGo's design system, auditing the existing system and leading projects that scale across platforms and products including Duck.ai and Search. You'll shape how the design system is managed and scaled as the company grows. Working autonomously, you'll lead highly impactful projects that reach millions of users, collaborating across all levels to pioneer solutions aligned with DuckDuckGo's privacy-by-design approach.
Your responsibilities include assessing vague problems and proposing high-impact solutions with clear success criteria, having a voice in all product-related design decisions, and communicating recommendations with clear documentation, success metrics, and rationale that stakeholders, designers, and engineers can act on confidently. You'll balance structure with scale by creating frameworks (tokens, libraries) that work across platforms and teams without sacrificing craft. You'll bridge design and engineering practices, creating shared nomenclature and workflows that map across tools and platforms. Additionally, you'll apply agentic and AI-driven solutions to design system management and maintenance workflows to accelerate and elevate how the system scales.
DuckDuckGo is a profitable, remote-first company of 300+ founded in 2008 with annual revenue exceeding $100m USD. The company offers a privacy-focused browser, search engine, subscription service, and Duck.ai (private AI chat). The culture emphasizes trust, inclusivity, and empowered project management, where each team member takes full ownership from scoping through execution.
REQUIREMENTS:
- 7+ years of experience in product or design systems roles, including 2+ years in senior-level design positions at significant global consumer brands
- Demonstrable track record of building and scaling complex and established systems
- Ability to lead the future of the design system, from audit through recommending solutions and planning rollout via quick wins or large-scale projects
- Ability to communicate recommendations and prioritization with clear documentation, success metrics, resources, and rationale
- Knack for balancing structure with scale by creating frameworks (tokens, libraries) that hold up across platforms and teams
- Deep knowledge of design tools such as Figma
- Experience bridging design and engineering practices, including creating shared nomenclature and workflows that map across tools and platforms
- Accustomed to applying agentic and AI-driven solutions into design system management and maintenance workflows
- Ability to push creative limits while solving challenging design problems and delivering on delight, craft, and exceptional quality
- Ability to communicate visual and interaction recommendations with high-quality mockups, prototypes, and rationale
- Skills to manage ambiguity, wrangle vague problems, propose innovative solutions, and execute with focus on metrics
- Ability to take initiative in generating ideas and carrying them forward with urgency and discretion while working openly and collaboratively
