Design System Lead - Product & Engineering
Shift4 Payments · Tampa
Shift4 (NYSE: FOUR) is boldly redefining commerce by simplifying complex payments ecosystems across the world. As the leader in commerce-enabling technology, Shift4 powers billions of transactions annually for hundreds of thousands of businesses in virtually every industry. For more information, visit www.shift4.com.
Design System Lead - Product & Engineering
Summary
Our Product Design team works across multiple product lines, from web and SaaS to Android and POS hardware, as we move toward a shared foundation. We are looking for a Design System Lead to lead the next evolution of that foundation. You will own the design system end-to-end, from token architecture and component governance to AI-assisted tooling that closes the gap between Figma and production. You will define what should be standardized across platforms and what should remain platform-specific, creating a cohesive product experience without forcing a single technical implementation. This is a high-impact, high-autonomy role at the intersection of systems design, front-end engineering, and modern AI workflows.
This role is onsite and can be based at any of the following Shift4 locations:
Tampa, FL (preferred) / Atlanta, GA / Center Valley, PA
Relocation assistance may be available.
Responsibilities
- Assess the current state of our design systems across design and engineering, identify gaps and duplication, and establish a practical roadmap for unification, migration, and ongoing governance.
- Own, evolve, and consolidate our design system foundations across web, mobile, and POS products.
- Define and maintain scalable token architecture, component libraries, theming, accessibility standards, and cross-platform patterns.
- Lead the migration of existing and legacy interfaces to the shared design system, using AI-assisted tools and workflows to accelerate the process at scale.
- Drive design-to-code alignment between Figma and production, establishing practical workflows that connect design, design system code, and production.
- Partner closely with engineers to translate design system foundations into production, accelerate component migration, identify inconsistencies, and improve adoption across products.
- Identify and implement AI-assisted opportunities to automate repetitive design system work, including audits, component mapping, documentation, and migration.
- Establish clear design system standards and review mechanisms that prevent teams from creating redundant or non-compliant components and ensure new work aligns with the shared system.
- Work closely with Product and Engineering leads to ensure the design system accelerates product development rather than creating additional processes or rework.
- Mentor designers on implementation-aware design, token usage, systems thinking, and AI-enabled workflows.
- Create practical documentation, examples, and guidelines that help product teams correctly adopt and extend the design system.
Qualifications
- 7+ years in Product Design, Design Systems, or UX Engineering roles.
- Proven track record building, evolving, and implementing production-ready design systems at scale.
- Deep expertise in token architecture, theming, component variants, accessibility, and cross-platform design systems.
- Strong Figma skills and understanding of design system best practices, governance, and design-to-code workflows.
- Hands-on experience with React, ShadCN, and Tailwind CSS, as well as Kotlin/Jetpack Compose and Material 3, with a strong understanding of how design system components, tokens, and patterns are implemented in production code.
- Demonstrated ability to use AI-assisted tools to accelerate design system work, including migration, auditing, component generation or mapping, documentation, and design-to-code workflows.
- Strong understanding of front-end implementation and the ability to collaborate directly with engineers on production design system components.
- Clear communicator who can align design and engineering around shared conventions and technical constraints.
Nice‑to‑have
- Experience in fintech, commerce, POS, or SaaS product environments.
- Experience migrating legacy design systems or products to a new unified system.
- Experience using AI to automate or accelerate design system implementation, auditing, and migration.
- Experience contributing directly to design system code or front-end repositories.
- Experience with Storybook, Style Dictionary, or other token pipeline tooling.
- Background in prototyping advanced or AI-assisted user experiences.
- Comfort working with payment terminal UI constraints and hardware-specific design patterns.
What success looks like
- Legacy products have a clear path toward the shared design foundation, with migration prioritized based on product impact and engineering feasibility.
- The shared design system is successfully adopted across web, mobile, and POS products, with legacy experiences progressively migrated to the new foundation.
- Product teams ship faster because the design system accelerates decisions instead of creating rework.
- Figma and production stay tightly aligned, with designers and engineers working from a consistent source of truth.
- AI-assisted workflows meaningfully accelerate design system migration, auditing, documentation, and design-to-code workflows.
- The design team produces more consistent, implementation-aware work.
- New features move from concept to production faster without sacrificing UX quality.
- The system has modern, maintainable foundations that scale as Shift4 adds products, platforms, and people.
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We are an Equal Opportunity Employer and do not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, color, sex, age, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression, status as a veteran, and basis of disability or any other federal, state or local protected class.