Lead Product Design, Design Systems & Experience

The Lead Product Designer, Design Systems & Experience Quality is an advanced individual contributor responsible for creating and maintaining the reusable components, interaction patterns, standards, documentation, and reference experiences that support Brightspeed’s digital products. This role translates approved product and experience strategies into scalable design solutions that improve consistency, accessibility, implementation quality, and delivery efficiency across Brightspeed’s digital ecosystem, including AI-supported and agent-based experiences., * Design, document, and maintain reusable components, interaction patterns, templates, and standards that support consistent and scalable digital experiences across Brightspeed.

• Define component anatomy, properties, variants, states, responsive behavior, accessibility requirements, content guidance, and intended usage.
• Maintain high-quality Figma libraries, component documentation, contribution standards, reference designs, prototypes, and other supporting design-system artifacts.
• Identify gaps, duplication, inconsistencies, and implementation drift across customer experiences and recommend scalable design-system solutions.
• Create practical standards for interaction behavior, visual hierarchy, responsive design, accessibility, content presentation, and design annotations.
• Design and validate complex components, interaction models, prototypes, and reference flows that require advanced systems thinking and technical collaboration.
• Develop prototypes and reference experiences that demonstrate how approved components and interaction patterns should work together across complex customer journeys.
• Review design work for consistency with Brightspeed’s design system, accessibility standards, responsive requirements, and documented interaction patterns.
• Support alignment between Figma components, design tokens, coded components, and front-end documentation in partnership with design and technology teams.
• Develop reusable components, interaction patterns, behavioral documentation, reference prototypes, and quality criteria for AI-enabled, conversational, and agent-based experiences.
• Establish AI experience patterns that clearly communicate when customers are interacting with AI, what the system can do, what information it uses, when customer confirmation is required, and how escalation or human handoff occurs.
• Develop reusable patterns for AI feedback, confirmation, error handling, escalation, failure states, and human handoff to promote consistent, accessible, and understandable customer experiences.
• Provide craft-focused guidance on design-system usage, interaction patterns, accessibility, AI behavior, responsive design, and implementation quality.
• Facilitate design-system working sessions and workshops to improve adoption, consistency, and effective use of shared standards and components.
• Partner with design leadership to help prioritize design-system investments based on customer impact, delivery efficiency, adoption, and business needs, while operating within product strategy and priorities established by design and product leadership.
• Lead through specialized expertise and influence across cross-functional teams without direct people-management or performance-management responsibilities.
• May perform other duties as assigned.

The above statements are intended to describe the general nature and level of work being performed and are not intended to be an exhaustive list of all responsibilities, duties, and skills required.

• Bachelor’s degree in Design, User Experience (UX), Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Human Factors, Visual Communication, Product Design, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• Eight or more years of experience in product design, interaction design, design systems, UX/UI design, digital product design, or a related discipline.
• Demonstrated experience designing, building, or maintaining scalable design systems, reusable components, interaction patterns, and supporting documentation.
• Practical experience designing or prototyping AI-enabled experiences, including AI interaction patterns, agent workflows, prototypes, or reusable design solutions.
• Portfolio demonstrating component architecture, reusable interaction patterns, accessibility, responsive design, systems thinking, documentation, and implementation quality.

Skills & Competencies

• Advanced knowledge of design systems, component architecture, interaction design, responsive design, accessibility, prototyping, and digital experience quality.
• Strong proficiency with Figma and experience creating and maintaining component libraries, design-system documentation, prototypes, and reference designs.
• Understanding of how design tokens, coded components, and front-end implementation relate to design-system standards and Figma components.
• Understanding of AI-enabled experience considerations, including model behavior, prompts, system instructions, tool use, data access, confidence, latency, failure states, privacy, security, and human oversight.
• Ability to translate established product and experience strategies into scalable design patterns, standards, and implementation guidance.
• Strong systems thinking and ability to identify patterns, inconsistencies, dependencies, and opportunities for reuse across complex digital experiences.
• Strong collaboration, communication, facilitation, and influencing skills, with the ability to provide specialized design guidance across product, design, and technology teams.
• Ability to lead through expertise and influence while working within product strategy, priorities, and design direction established by product and design leadership.
• English proficiency required; bilingual Spanish skills are a plus., * Experience in telecommunications, broadband, utilities, subscription services, fintech, retail, service-based eCommerce, or similar industries.
• Experience designing customer support, self-service, checkout, account management, onboarding, recommendation, conversational AI, or agent-based experiences.
• Experience creating design-system contribution models, governance documentation, system training, component-usage standards, or related enablement materials.

Physical Demands & Work Conditions

• Work is primarily performed indoors from a home or company office, with regular use of a computer and standard office productivity tools.
• Ability to perform typical office-based activities for extended periods, including computer-based design, documentation, and virtual collaboration.
• Occasional additional hours may be required to support project deadlines, business priorities, or critical deliverables.

Recognized as a Top Workplace by the Charlotte Observer, Brightspeed HQ is located on the 7th floor of the new Vantage South End - East Tower in Charlotte, NC. We prioritize hiring talent in the Charlotte area, whenever possible, to make it a truly vibrant destination for our hybrid workforce. At Brightspeed, we have roles that are designated as remote, hybrid, office or field-based, depending on the position, business needs and individual circumstances. We also invest in technology that enables our entire team to stay connected. Why? Because Brightspeed recognizes the value of finding the best talent for the job, wherever they may be.

We offer competitive compensation and comprehensive benefits.

Our benefits and paid time off programs reflect our underlying belief in promoting overall wellness through physical, emotional and financial health. Brightspeed offers a comprehensive benefit program, including competitive medical, dental, vision, and life insurance; an employee assistance program; a 401K plan with company match and a host of voluntary benefits.

Inclusion and belonging are at the center of our grounding belief in Being Real.

When we bring our authentic selves to work, everyone is better as a result. A diverse team helps us be fierce advocates for more accessible, inclusive and high-quality internet, because we believe doing so promotes equity in the communities we serve.

At Brightspeed, we are reimagining how people live, work, play and connect by providing fast, reliable internet connections and an awesome customer experience in twenty states throughout the Midwest and South.

Backed by funds managed by Apollo Global Management, our vision is to accelerate the upgrade of copper to fiber optic technologies, bringing faster and more reliable internet service to many rural markets traditionally underserved by broadband providers, while delivering best-in-class customer experience.

Be a part of the team that will make this vision a reality….designing and building a world class fiber network and creating a customer experience second to none.