6-month contract with possible extension for an AI Design Systems Contractor (with Figma exp.) in Oakland, CA (hybrid)
***We can only consider US Citizens and US Permanent Residents for this role***
Overview:
- Our client is seeking a Design Systems Contractor to help build its AI-assisted creative tools. This role is designed for someone working at the intersection of AI, creative innovation, and design systems, with experience integrating AI into real creative workflows and understanding what design systems need to enable AI.
- The Design Systems Contractor will serve as the primary technical builder behind company’s emerging AI-assisted creative workflow. The role will test and refine AI-assisted skills and agents, maintain the standardized token and component architecture those tools depend on, and build the landing page system from the ground up as an AI-ready foundation designed to scale.
- This position will partner closely with Design Leadership, Brand, and AI Engineering to translate system requirements into scalable, well-documented Figma infrastructure.
Responsibilities:
AI-Assisted Creative Workflows
• Identify where AI can improve creative production by finding manual steps that can be eliminated or streamlined.
• Prototype AI-assisted improvements against real design work and determine which solutions are worth adopting.
• Run the testing loop for AI-assisted creative skills currently in development.
• Debug, test, and refine AI-assisted skills until they meet production standards.
• Help establish scalable AI-assisted creative workflows that can be used across the organization.
Design Systems & Figma Architecture
• Build and maintain the Figma component and token architecture used by AI-assisted skills and agents.
• Maintain standardized components, tokens, variables, and system conventions.
• Support migration into a larger shared design system.
• Ensure design system infrastructure is structured so AI-assisted tools can effectively read and use it.
• Document component usage and system conventions to maintain consistency as other designers and stakeholders build on the libraries.
Landing Page System
• Take company’s product landing page system from design through build in partnership with development teams.
• Document specifications throughout development.
• Conduct QA and refinement.
• Deliver production-ready components structured for use by AI-assisted skills.
• Establish the landing page system as an AI-ready, scalable foundation.
Email & Marketing Design Systems
• Build out the email template system already in development.
• Apply the same AI-ready design system standards to email templates.
• Extend the framework to additional marketing channels as capacity allows.
Cross-Functional Partnership & Prioritization
• Partner with Design Leadership to prioritize work across:
o AI-assisted creative development
o Landing pages
o Design systems
• Manage priorities within a fixed capacity.
• Partner closely with Brand, Design, AI Engineering, and development teams.
• Independently manage multiple concurrent workstreams without allowing foundational design system work to fall behind.
Required Qualifications
• 5+ years of experience in marketing or creative design systems.
• Deep hands-on Figma expertise, including:
o Variables
o Tokens
o Component properties
o Auto-layout at scale
• Strong understanding and application of graphic design principles.
• Hands-on experience developing AI-assisted creative skills, agents, and workflows, including:
o Building
o Testing
o Refining
o Shipping
• Ability to approach AI-assisted skill development similarly to product development.
• Strong understanding of the evolving AI creative tooling landscape, including a clear point of view on which technologies are worth adopting.
• Proven experience building or significantly scaling a component library from an early stage through production use.
• Strong organizational skills and ability to work independently against established milestones.
• Comfortable operating with minimal day-to-day direction.
• Ability to manage multiple concurrent workstreams, including AI-assisted skill development, landing page development, and systems migration.
• Strong portfolio demonstrating:
o Marketing or creative design systems built
o AI-assisted creative skills or workflows developed
Preferred Qualifications
• Demonstrated measurable results from AI-assisted creative work, such as:
o AI skills developed
o Workflows streamlined
o Manual steps eliminated
o Improvements in creative output quality
• Experience building or maintaining marketing email component systems.
• Experience building or maintaining landing page component systems.
• Experience with multi-brand or multi-team design systems.
• Experience migrating into or building alongside a larger shared design system governed by another team.
• Collaborative, low-ego approach to systems work.
• Comfortable serving as the technical builder behind the scenes rather than owning overall creative direction.
Education
• Four-year degree in Design required.
Portfolio Requirement
A strong portfolio is required and should demonstrate both sides of the role:
• Marketing or creative design systems the candidate has built.
• AI-assisted creative skills or workflows the candidate has developed.
