Staff Product Designer

Role Description

Our Design team crafts delightful experiences that make people's lives easier. We're a close-knit, collaborative group, guided by a highly iterative user-centered design process. Combining research, data, and thoughtful critique, we're discovering needs and solving fundamental problems that impact work and life for millions of people around the world.

The Design Systems team delivers systems that support product teams in bringing consistently high quality visual and interaction design to all products. We are a centralized, horizontal team that serves all designers and engineers who work on customer-facing Dropbox products. Our mission is to make it fast and easy for Dropboxers to build UI that is coherent, on brand, and high quality.

As a Staff Product Designer focused in Design Systems, you’ll play a key role in the architecture and evolution of DIG (Dropbox Interface Guidelines), and all design systems practices within Dropbox.

Your role will be threefold: Drive the architecture and evolution of Dropbox’s design system (DIG), maturing it toward a “system of systems” that supports Dropbox’s multi-product strategy. Articulate maturity models, future visions, and tradeoffs for how DIG and systems practices will grow and change over time to meet the needs of the business.Strengthen design system foundations by prioritizing, delivering, and growing adoption for the right patterns and components. Use a mix of data and your own experience to form a strong opinion about what is most valuable to focus on, and see it through execution.Evolve design systems operations, education, and metrics to better support internal customers. Bring a spirit of innovation and continuous improvement to all Design Systems practices.

Responsibilities

• Systems Strategy & Execution: 
• Work closely with managers and Engineering partners to bring systems strategies to life, and build high quality UI foundations that enable designers and engineers across the company to efficiently deliver great products. 
• Deliver strategic narratives, components, patterns, documentation, guidelines, and training.
• Craft & Talent: 
• Show up as an experienced role model, setting a high craft bar for systems and visual design.
• Hone high quality work through detailed critique.
• Share your experience and excellence through leading by example in your design work, directly mentoring other designers, and creating and leveraging venues to share knowledge with the entire Design team. 
• Be an expert liaison in the broader external design community, sharing and collecting knowledge about tools, practices, and emerging industry standards.
• Collaboration & Communication: 
• Work proactively as a trusted partner with Engineers, Product Designers, Content Designers, Brand Designers, Researchers, Product Managers, Program Managers, and leaders at all levels.
• Through relationships and observations, discover opportunities for design patterns across the company. Hold crucial conversations with teams to influence systems adoption.
• Bring enthusiasm, expertise, and clarity to all customer interactions as an influential ambassador for Design Systems across the company.
• Craft clear narratives that translate complex, technical subjects into compelling stories that executive leaders can support.

Requirements

• 8-10+ years experience in a senior Individual Contributor design role. 
• 2+ years of experience in a design systems role.
• Experience building products in a remote or distributed team environment.
• Demonstrated portfolio of leading or contributing to systems that have made an impact on business and customer metrics.
• Expertise in Figma.

Preferred Qualifications

• Exceptional interaction design skills, including prototyping. Direct experience with engineering and some ability to understand and work directly in code.
• Advanced to expert visual design skills (typography, color, hierarchy).
• Experience with accessibility standards.
• Engaging storyteller with excellent written and verbal communication. Proven ability to hold conversations on design with executives and external industry leaders.