Design System Specialist

As Design System Specialist, you will own the design system as the shared foundation product teams build and automate from: design language and principles, design tokens, the component library, the Figma-to-code contract, and the documentation and governance to ensure integrity and use at scale, keeping Royal Mail's brand identity consistent across every surface.

This individual contributor role sits at the intersection of design and engineering. You will operate agents that monitor drift, generate documentation and support design QA, with your focus on architecture decisions, judgement calls and stakeholder alignment.

What You'll Be Doing

At its core, this role is about building the foundation that lets the rest of the design and engineering organisation move faster, with more consistency and less rework.

Design system architecture

• Architect the design system for clarity at scale: token architecture, component rules and documented decision criteria that keep the system consistent as it grows.
• Own the propagation pipeline from Figma into engineering's codebase, partnering with engineering and frontend teams so tokens, components and patterns are consumable by code as well as by designers.
• Define and maintain conventions across Figma, including file structure, layer naming and handoff annotations, and keep them enforced as the team scales.

AI-enabled practice

• Operate agents that monitor drift between Figma and production, flag issues and support design QA, reviewing outputs and triaging what needs your judgement.
• Build automation around the system, including plugins, scripts and Figma Make workflows, to remove repetitive work from designers and engineers alike.

Governance and quality

• Establish and maintain documentation and governance for design system components, including versioning, naming conventions, contribution guidelines and change management for both human and agent use.
• Lead design system audits and accessibility reviews, ensuring components meet WCAG 2.2 AA by default.

Adoption and enablement

• Run regular design system office hours and hands-on support for designers and engineers across teams, driving effective adoption in addition to component documentation.
• Define and track adoption KPIs that measure the design system's impact on delivery speed, consistency, and quality.
• Make the case for system investment to product and engineering leadership, building the stakeholder relationships that keep the system funded and prioritised.
• Embed design system adoption into platform modernisation and journey rebuild work, so new products default to system-based design from the outset.

You will bring strong systems thinking, comfort operating at the intersection of design and engineering, and the stakeholder skills to make the case for why the design system matters., * A track record of leading design system or platform design capability within a product organisation, evidenced by a portfolio of system architecture, tokens and documented governance.

• Experience translating brand identity and visual language into a scalable design system, ensuring tokens and components stay true to the brand as it grows.
• Working knowledge of HTML, CSS and at least one component-based front-end framework, enough to communicate fluently with engineers and specify tokens that propagate cleanly.
• Demonstrated practice building or operating automation around design tools such as Figma plugins, scripts or Figma Make.
• Comfortable writing structured prompts and iterating on rule sets that govern agent behaviour around the design system.
• Strong systems thinking, understanding the needs humans and agents as consumers of the system.
• Track record of stakeholder management, making the case for design system investment with product and engineering leadership.
• Proven experience supporting WCAG 2.2 AA and inclusive design principles within design systems., * Systems thinker, comfortable holding architecture-level detail and the bigger picture at once.
• Pragmatic and focused on adoption and real-world usage.
• Confident making the case for system investment to senior stakeholders.
• Comfortable building capability from the ground up in a growing design function.
• Collaborative, used to working closely with both engineers and designers to achieve system-wide goals.

Pulled from the full job description

• Annual leave

• Sick pay

• Company pension, Competitive salary plus car allowance, healthcare , 18% annual bonus potential, 25 days annual leave plus bank holidays rising with service and a company pension scheme with highly competitive contribution rates Permanent, Full time Royal Mail Farringdon x3 days in office, Family friendly support - enhanced maternity pay, paternity leave, adoption leave and shared parental leave

• Supportive and generous company sick pay

• Funded Dental - As a manager you are eligible to a level of employer funded dental insurance*

• Health Assessment - As a manager you are eligible to an employer funded health assessment every 2 years*

• Benefits Account - You will have access to your personal benefits account on our 'My Bundle+' platform. There are more than 800 retail offers to help you save on things like groceries, days out, holidays and your household bills as well as employer provided and voluntary benefits to suit your lifestyle.

• Your Wellbeing - you and your family have 24/7 access to services and tools to help you get the most out of life. From your physical and mental health to financial and social support and advice. It's free, and it's for everyone.