portal resources jobs companies s smartnews senior product designer, design systems specialist

Senior Product Designer, Design Systems Specialist 🔥


News can change the world, save lives, and bring us all closer together through empathy and understanding - but not if it isn’t read. Out of the hundreds of millions of articles and posts, how do we deliver the information that matters the most? How do we avoid the filter bubble of personalization and widen people’s interests and knowledge?

SmartNews is creating an entirely new model for the news industry. Our mission is to evaluate (in real-time) what makes a quality story and deliver the stories that matter to people who need it. We are dedicated to the idea that people make better decisions when provided with better information.

We’re not there yet, but we have a great head start. We’re one of the very few pre-IPO, (double) unicorns focused on the news with thousands of publisher partners globally. Founded in Tokyo in 2012, SmartNews has become the go-to source of news for users around the world. We have more than 20M+ monthly active users worldwide, billions of channel interactions, and article pageviews generated per month.

Join us and be a part of the solution as we work to escape the filter bubble, strengthen democracy, and help people be better informed.


About You


We’re looking for exceptional product designers to join our team and build the world’s greatest news app.

You are an integritous, quality human being with a belief in the mission and a hunger to improve our collective understanding of the world and each other through people's access to quality information.

This role drives a newly formed design system within the Product Division at SmartNews. The design system will be used by SmartNews Product Designers every day and impacts the lives of millions of end-users globally. In this role, you will work with them to drive consistent design usage and establish a design system derived from our existing design language. You will be the key contributor to connecting Engineers and Product Designers to guide the creation of new components to meet the multiple use cases of our platforms.

You are open-minded, have a thirst to learn, and are energized by close and collaborative work with a diverse set of peers. You're a natural communicator, comfortable sharing your opinion, and thrive in ambiguous situations.

You believe that design is a strategic differentiator and, when done well, guides the relationships between people and products effortlessly to beat our goals. Most importantly, you know and believe that design is fundamentally about understanding people and problem solving and have experience turning those understandings into successful products.


Responsibilities

  • Drive a significant initiative to evolve our current design system in Figma—from implementing foundational elements such as the type, color, and grid to sets of components and patterns that supports apps and web, US and Japan editions.
  • Create documentation for usage and anatomy criteria across the design system to evangelize consistent usage of the design system.
  • Work closely with Product Designers (and Engineers for implementation) to build on our component library and to create guidelines and processes that ensure we are designing and building uniform experiences.
  • Collaborate with cross-functional partner teams to develop industry leading product solutions for news media.
  • Share and present concepts, designs, ideations, and design decisions to a wide range of stakeholders and partners.
  • Balance competing responsibilities for products throughout the explore, expand and extract S-curve with intentionality and clarity of purpose.
  • Periodically conduct end-to-end audits of our visuals and design system to push the design system forward continually.
  • Support Design-lead projects that are planned and owned by the Design team when available.

Requirements

  • 6+ years in a UX Designer or Product Designer role leading a complex design system project
  • A portfolio of design projects that demonstrates systems thinking, technical skills, interaction design, and visual design
  • Previous experience working on design systems that have a proven track record of providing value to the business
  • A deep understanding of UX best practices in responsive web applications—including accessibility guidelines
  • Strong visual awareness and sensibilities

Nice to Haves

  • Experience working with third-party component libraries (e.g., Material UI, Bootstrap, Apple HIG)
  • Experience working in a global team
  • Knowledge of programming, mobile iOS or Android, or HTML/CSS/Javascript
  • B.S. degree in a technical or cognitive field
  • Multidisciplinary background such as Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Sociology, Comp. Sci, Data Vis, or Anthropology
  • Experience managing or mentoring designers and building a design team.
  • Can speak Japanese

Benefits

  • Equity included
  • 100% medical, dental and vision insurance coverage (100% coverage for dependents)
  • Monthly mobile phone and gym allowances
  • 401k matching program
  • Free lunch, snacks, drinks, etc.
  • Pet friendly office

Let us send you new openings similar to Senior Product Designer, Design Systems Specialist straight to your Inbox. Weekly or Daily. 7-day free trial 💌

The ability to work remotely increases employee happiness by 20 percent.