CrawlJobs Logo
KAYAK Logo KAYAK · IT - Software Development

Foundations Designer, Design Systems

Germany, Berlin · Job Posted February 18, 2026
Apply Position
Job Link Share

Job Description

KAYAK is looking for a Foundations Designer to join our Design Language and Systems team. The work is foundational: icons, illustrations, motion, tokens. The assets and patterns that make our products feel consistent across platforms and brands, and that actually ship into production. This isn't a role where you'll be designing screens or running research. It's about building systems that other designers use. You'll work closely with our Design Systems leads in Boston, Berlin and Copenhagen, and collaborate with product designers, engineers, and brand partners across the company.

Job Responsibility

  • Design and maintain visual asset systems (icons, illustrations, supporting assets) across KAYAK's brand portfolio
  • Contribute to our motion language, including interaction patterns, timing principles, and reduced-motion considerations
  • Support the definition and management of design tokens (color, typography, spacing, radius, motion) across brands and platforms
  • Partner with engineering to keep design foundations aligned with production
  • Build and maintain Figma libraries using best practices for components, properties, variables, and documentation
  • Work with product pods and embedded designers on contribution models
  • Use AI tools to accelerate exploration, reduce repetitive work, and improve how assets move from design to implementation

Requirements

  • 3+ years of experience in a product design organization
  • Experience building and shipping scalable icon or illustration systems
  • Experience contributing to or owning motion systems, including reusable patterns and reduced-motion guidance
  • Strong Figma proficiency, including components, properties, variables, and library architecture
  • A working understanding of design tokens and how they map to code and component APIs
  • Hands-on experience using AI tools to optimize design processes and workflows
  • Comfort collaborating with engineers and front-end workflows like Storybook, GitHub, and component documentation
  • A self-driven, autonomous approach
  • A proactive and inquisitive mindset

What we offer

  • 6 weeks of paid vacation
  • Work from (almost) anywhere for up to 20 days per year
  • Company-paid therapy sessions through SpringHealth
  • Company-paid subscription to HeadSpace
  • Company-wide week off a year
  • No meeting Fridays
  • Paid parental leave
  • Paid volunteer time
  • Development Dollars
  • Leadership development
  • Access to thousands of on-demand e-learnings
  • Travel Discounts
  • Employee Resource Groups
  • Free lunch 2 days per week
  • Pension plan contributions
  • Public transportation subsidies
  • Bike leasing program
  • Monthly social events, massages, Thursday happy hours, sports teams
  • An awesome office in Friedrichshain, Berlin
KAYAK - All Job Offers

Looking for more opportunities?

Search for other job offers that match your skills and interests.

Suggested Tags: Frontend Developer Secretary Talent Manager Salesforce Administrator Data Analyst
Similar Jobs for

Foundations Designer, Design Systems

8 matching positions

Product Designer - Design Systems

A short term contract role focused on building and scaling a web design system, ...
Location
Location
United Kingdom
Salary
Salary:
450.00 - 550.00 GBP / Hour
zebrapeople.com Logo
Zebra People
Expiration Date
Until further notice
Flip Icon
Requirements
Requirements
  • Has strong experience building web design systems
  • Has experience working with design tokens
  • Has experience building multi brand or themed design systems
  • Has experience creating component libraries and templates for web platforms
  • Has worked closely with engineering on design system implementation
  • Is comfortable working independently and shaping system structure
Job Responsibility
Job Responsibility
  • Creating and structuring design tokens
  • Building scalable web components and templates
  • Creating systems that support multiple themes and brand variations
  • Supporting partner onboarding through themed templates and page structures
  • Helping ensure the web design system is scalable and maintainable
  • Creating token structure for colour, typography, spacing and other foundations
  • Ensuring tokens support theming and multiple brand variations
  • Working with engineering to ensure tokens align with the front end implementation
  • Helping define how tokens are structured and managed going forward
  • Creating theme structures that support multiple partners or brands
Read More
Arrow Right

Senior Product Designer, Design Systems

As a Senior Product Designer on the Design Systems team, you will focus on build...
Location
Location
United States , Denver
Salary
Salary:
143000.00 - 153000.00 USD / Year
strava.com Logo
Strava
Expiration Date
Until further notice
Flip Icon
Requirements
Requirements
  • 3+ years of product design experience, with meaningful hands-on work in design systems, component libraries, or UI foundations
  • A portfolio that demonstrates shipped design system work and its impact
  • Experience designing and shipping for both native mobile and web platforms
  • A high bar for visual and interaction design, paired with strong UX fundamentals
  • A solid understanding of engineering complexity within design systems, including states, variants, and implementation constraints
  • Comfort reading code and partnering closely with engineers to shape scalable, maintainable components
  • Familiarity with design tokens, component libraries, and documentation tools such as Storybook or Zeroheight
  • Practical knowledge of accessibility guidelines and inclusive design principles
  • Experience working in cross-functional, Agile product teams
  • Curiosity, a growth mindset, and a desire to continually improve tools, processes, and outcomes
Job Responsibility
Job Responsibility
  • Own and evolve major components and foundational patterns within Strava’s design system
  • Design and maintain Figma libraries, components, tokens, and system documentation
  • Define and refine UX and UI patterns used across multiple product teams
  • Improve cross-platform parity across iOS, Android, web, and Apple Watch, while respecting platform conventions
  • Partner closely with engineering on component APIs, states, variants, and theming to keep design and code aligned
  • Contribute to design-to-code workflows and automation that reduce manual effort and speed up production
  • Advance and maintain accessibility standards across system components and patterns
  • Write clear documentation and usage guidelines that support consistent adoption across design and engineering
  • Represent the design system in cross-team critiques, working sessions, and forums
  • Support and mentor other designers through feedback, collaboration, and shared best practices
What we offer
What we offer
  • Offers Equity
  • Fulltime
Read More
Arrow Right

Senior Product Designer, Design Systems

We're looking to bring on a designer to lead our design systems. You will be wor...
Location
Location
United States , San Francisco
Salary
Salary:
150000.00 - 200000.00 USD / Year
ziphq.com Logo
Zip
Expiration Date
Until further notice
Flip Icon
Requirements
Requirements
  • 5+ years experience as a design systems or product designer at a digital product company, contributing/leading the design and visual execution of product experiences
  • At least 3 years of design systems experience is required
  • Expertise in Figma, Storybook, WCAG compliance, and other design systems tools
  • A foundational understanding of HTML/CSS, how to design across multiple breakpoints, devices, and locales, and the ability to talk with developers about the implementation details
  • Strong portfolio demonstrating samples of best practice Design System deliverables (style foundations, components, interaction design, iconography, and prototypes)
  • Exceptionally strong visual, UI and interaction skills — you’re a champion for design and product excellence
  • Highly organized & systematic thinker with experience in driving a design process and working collaboratively to solve problems
  • Excitement about socializing a design system across an organization
  • Thrive in ambiguity and can independently prioritize work based on user needs and business goals, and take responsibility to drive product ideas forward
  • Great presentation, collaboration and communication skills
Job Responsibility
Job Responsibility
  • Contribute to Zip’s vision and how to reimagine the procurement space with elegant, modern, interfaces
  • Grow and mature our Design System capabilities and toolkits by pioneering new foundations, components, practices and methodologies
  • Develop a long-term strategy for design systems at Zip and collaborate closely with engineering and design to ensure components are implemented correctly
  • Drive requirements gathering with designers and engineers to build a well-rounded understanding of different product areas to help design of flexible and extensible frameworks, patterns, and components
  • Set a high quality standard for user interfaces across the board, inventorying inconsistencies and proposing the necessary improvements
  • Develop usage guidelines that teach designers and engineers how to use the components and patterns across design and code
  • create channels for feedback and improvements to ensure consistent implementation of components in code across multiple product verticals
  • Organize robust Figma libraries, and keep them neat and usable
  • Collaborate with other designers to craft and maintain a holistic product vision across Zip’s suite of products
  • Evangelize the Design System’s importance across the company in presentations, meetings, and other forums
What we offer
What we offer
  • Start-up equity
  • Health, vision & dental coverage
  • Catered lunches & dinners for TO employees
  • Team building events & happy hours
  • Flexible PTO
  • Apple equipment plus home office budget
  • Fulltime
Read More
Arrow Right

Staff Design Systems Designer

We’re looking for Ethos’ first Design Systems Designer to build and evolve the d...
Location
Location
United States
Salary
Salary:
126000.00 - 224000.00 USD / Year
ethoslife.com Logo
Ethos
Expiration Date
Until further notice
Flip Icon
Requirements
Requirements
  • 7+ years of relevant experience, with a track record of setting system strategy, driving cross-team adoption, and raising the bar for design quality across an organization
  • Strong product design foundation with excellent visual and interaction craft
  • Hands-on experience building and maintaining design systems in Figma, including component architecture, documentation, and scalable patterns
  • Strong working fluency with modern front-end concepts (tokens, components, states, responsive behavior)
  • Experience setting accessibility standards and shipping accessible components (WCAG-informed practices, inclusive design thinking)
  • Ability to thrive in ambiguity and build structure where it doesn’t yet exist
  • Clear communicator who can align diverse stakeholders and influence without relying on formal authority
  • A portfolio that demonstrates end-to-end design system thinking and real-world impact (adoption, quality, speed, consistency)
Job Responsibility
Job Responsibility
  • Establish the vision, principles, and roadmap for Ethos’ design system
  • Audit the current system, product UI and identify the highest-leverage opportunities to standardize patterns and reduce inconsistency
  • Define a scalable token strategy (color, typography, spacing, elevation, motion, etc.) and a clear approach to theming and brand expression across products
  • Design, build, and maintain Figma libraries (components, styles/variables, templates, and patterns)
  • Create high-quality component specifications with clear interaction behavior, states, responsive guidance, and accessibility considerations
  • Ensure the system supports narrative, conversion-driven experiences
  • Partner with Design System / Front-End engineers to translate the system into reusable code components and tokens
  • Align on workflows that keep design and code in sync
  • Drive pragmatic adoption
  • Build documentation
  • Fulltime
Read More
Arrow Right

Staff Design Systems Designer

At Harvey, we’re transforming how legal and professional services operate — not ...
Location
Location
United States , San Francisco
Salary
Salary:
192000.00 - 259500.00 USD / Year
harvey.ai Logo
Harvey
Expiration Date
Until further notice
Flip Icon
Requirements
Requirements
  • 8+ years of experience in product design, with significant ownership of design systems in complex product environments
  • An excellent portfolio demonstrating system-level thinking, component design, and real product impact
  • Deep understanding of component architecture, design tokens, and how design systems scale across teams
  • Proven experience partnering closely with frontend engineers to ship high-quality, production systems
  • Strong working knowledge of accessibility standards and inclusive design practices
  • Ability to clearly articulate system decisions and tradeoffs to designers, engineers, and cross-functional partners
  • Comfort operating in ambiguous problem spaces and bringing structure where it doesn’t yet exist
Job Responsibility
Job Responsibility
  • Define and evolve the core design system foundations, including components, patterns, and tokens that scale across complex, AI-powered experiences
  • Design, prototype, and ship production-ready system components in tight collaboration with frontend engineering
  • Partner directly with frontend and platform engineers to ensure system decisions translate cleanly into code, with shared ownership of quality, performance, and maintainability
  • Establish clear contribution, governance, and deprecation models that balance velocity with system integrity
  • Embed accessibility, responsiveness, and performance into the system by default
  • Document system usage and best practices in a way that is clear, practical, and trusted by product teams
  • Advocate for system adoption and consistency in product planning, design reviews, and execution
  • Anticipate future product and platform needs, evolving the system proactively as Harvey scales
What we offer
What we offer
  • Comprehensive health, dental and vision coverage
  • retirement benefits (401k match up to 4%)
  • flexible PTO
  • equity plan
  • bonus
  • Fulltime
Read More
Arrow Right

Staff Design Systems Designer

At Harvey, we’re transforming how legal and professional services operate — not ...
Location
Location
United States , New York
Salary
Salary:
192000.00 - 259500.00 USD / Year
harvey.ai Logo
Harvey
Expiration Date
Until further notice
Flip Icon
Requirements
Requirements
  • 8+ years of experience in product design, with significant ownership of design systems in complex product environments
  • An excellent portfolio demonstrating system-level thinking, component design, and real product impact
  • Deep understanding of component architecture, design tokens, and how design systems scale across teams
  • Proven experience partnering closely with frontend engineers to ship high-quality, production systems
  • Strong working knowledge of accessibility standards and inclusive design practices
  • Ability to clearly articulate system decisions and tradeoffs to designers, engineers, and cross-functional partners
  • Comfort operating in ambiguous problem spaces and bringing structure where it doesn’t yet exist
Job Responsibility
Job Responsibility
  • Define and evolve the core design system foundations, including components, patterns, and tokens that scale across complex, AI-powered experiences
  • Design, prototype, and ship production-ready system components in tight collaboration with frontend engineering
  • Partner directly with frontend and platform engineers to ensure system decisions translate cleanly into code, with shared ownership of quality, performance, and maintainability
  • Establish clear contribution, governance, and deprecation models that balance velocity with system integrity
  • Embed accessibility, responsiveness, and performance into the system by default
  • Document system usage and best practices in a way that is clear, practical, and trusted by product teams
  • Advocate for system adoption and consistency in product planning, design reviews, and execution
  • Anticipate future product and platform needs, evolving the system proactively as Harvey scales
What we offer
What we offer
  • Offers Equity
  • Offers Bonus
  • Comprehensive health, dental and vision coverage
  • retirement benefits (401k match up to 4%)
  • flexible PTO
  • Fulltime
Read More
Arrow Right

Product Designer - Design Systems

We’re hiring an experienced Design Systems Designer to help us formalize and ext...
Location
Location
United States , Boston, Los Angeles
Salary
Salary:
80.00 - 110.00 USD / Hour
suno.ai Logo
Suno
Expiration Date
Until further notice
Flip Icon
Requirements
Requirements
  • A systems thinker with an artist’s heart
  • Not “just” a systems designer
  • Technically curious
  • Craft-obsessed
  • Collaborative to your core
  • A proactive builder
Job Responsibility
Job Responsibility
  • Help formalize and extend the foundation of our visual language and design DNA
  • Work with Product Designers, Software and Design Engineers, Brand Designers, and more, to shape how our product looks, feels, functions, and scales across multiple products and platforms
  • Bring clarity and cohesion to every component, pattern, and motion principle
  • Build a system that makes it easier (and more fun) for everyone to vibe code and design so that creativity flows freely, without ever losing consistency or soul
  • Fulltime
Read More
Arrow Right

Senior Content Designer, Language Systems, Human Interface Design

Build the systems that scale clear, consistent, human experiences. General Motor...
Location
Location
United States , Warren
Salary
Salary:
105600.00 - 140700.00 USD / Year
gm.com Logo
General Motors
Expiration Date
Until further notice
Flip Icon
Requirements
Requirements
  • A portfolio demonstrating systems thinking, content design maturity, standards creation, and successful integration of technology and tools in content processes
  • Strong technical proficiency in Figma, components, plugins, and variables
  • Strong sense of ownership and ability to create structure in ambiguous environments
  • Experience shaping governance models, playbooks, or tool strategies for content systems
  • Deep understanding of human interface design principles and how language contributes to usability
  • Strong UX writing instincts with a preference for precision, clarity, and minimalism
  • High comfort level with technical concepts
  • ability to understand engineering and product terminology quickly
  • Experience with content quality or AI‑enabled tools (Ditto, Acrolinx, and Markup AI strongly preferred)
  • Expertise in information architecture, taxonomy, and structuring complex content systems
Job Responsibility
Job Responsibility
  • Build and evolve governance models—including workflows, decision frameworks, review practices, and change‑management processes—that scale content quality across teams
  • Evaluate, pilot, and operationalize AI‑enabled content tools like linting engines, terminology platforms, writing assistants, and evaluation tools to improve consistency and efficiency
  • Establish criteria and assessment methods for tool selection, ensuring solutions align with HID workflows, design systems, and content quality goals
  • Create clear, authoritative documentation—standards, playbooks, patterns, system guides, and reference materials—to support large-scale adoption
  • Collaborate with the design system team to embed language foundations into components, patterns, and UI guidance
  • Write and refine content directly in Figma to validate standards against real flows, wires, and UI constructs
  • Partner with mobile, web, and vehicle content designers to ensure terminology and patterns remain aligned across connected journeys
  • Lead working sessions, audits, and reviews to enforce governance practices and ensure consistency across teams and platforms
  • Lead the HID studio in systems thinking, tool adoption, and decision-making related to language quality and governance
  • Advocate for clarity, consistency, and system integrity across product and design partners
What we offer
What we offer
  • medical
  • dental
  • vision
  • Health Savings Account
  • Flexible Spending Accounts
  • retirement savings plan
  • sickness and accident benefits
  • life insurance
  • paid vacation & holidays
  • tuition assistance programs
  • Fulltime
Read More
Arrow Right