Head of Design Systems

Job description

Discover your future at Citi

Working at Citi is far more than just a job.

A career with us means joining a team of more than 230,000 dedicated people from around the globe.

At Citi, you'll have the opportunity to grow your career, give back to your community and make a real impact.

Job Overview

Role summary

We're hiring a Head of Design Systems to lead the strategy, technology, and creative direction of our enterprise-wide design system that powers digital experiences across businesses and functions.

This leader will be both a seasoned design craft practitioner and a strong engineering-minded platform owner—accountable for the visual digital brand, the system's component library and code, governance, documentation, and adoption.

You'll manage a global, multi-disciplinary team of designers, design technologists/developers, strategists, writers, and producers, and you'll own our design and research tool portfolio (e.g., Figma Enterprise, research/analytics platforms).

A deep understanding of AI (generative AI and agentic AI) and digital accessibility is essential to transform our platform into an AI-powered, scalable foundation that accelerates innovative, creative, compliant delivery in a regulated environment.

What you'll do

Vision, strategy, and governance

• Set the multi-year vision and roadmap for the enterprise design system—covering design tokens, components, patterns, documentation, and platform services—aligned to business priorities, risk, digital accessibility, and engineering strategy.
  
  

• Establish and chair cross-functional governance (Design, Product, Engineering, Brand, Accessibility, Compliance, Security, and Architecture) with clear contribution and change-management models.
  
  

• Define adoption strategy, KPIs/OKRs, and incentives to drive measurable outcomes across lines of business and functions.
  
  

Platform consolidation & migration (multi-system unified platform)

• Inventory and assess existing/legacy design systems across businesses/functions (tokens, components, code stacks, documentation quality, accessibility posture, and adoption).
  
  

• Define a convergence strategy: token mapping & theming, component equivalence matrix, de-duplication rules, and brand harmonization guidelines.
  
  

• Create a phased migration plan with success criteria, deprecation timelines, risk controls, and a documented rollback path.
  
  

• Provide tooling and automation (e.g., codemods, lint rules, UI audits, visual-regression baselines) to accelerate safe migration.
  
  

• Stand up a contribution/exception process and a comms plan, with dashboards to track migration progress and impact.
  
  

System architecture & engineering excellence

• Lead engineering for the system's codebase (e.g., Web Components/React/Angular, TypeScript, Storybook, CI/CD, package distribution/registries) and partner with Architecture on standards: design tokens, theming, motion, internationalization (i18n) and right-to-left (RTL) support.
  
  

• Ensure quality through automated testing (unit/visual regression), performance budgets, security scans, and a versioning/release strategy (safe migrations, deprecation policies).
  
  

• Integrate the system into product pipelines (e.g., GitHub/GitLab and internal developer portals) to reduce design-to-engineering friction and improve time-to-market, with opinionated pull/merge templates, required reviewers, and branch protections.
  
  

Art direction & brand stewardship

• Serve as the art director and custodian of our digital visual brand—color, typography, iconography, motion, and imagery—ensuring brand consistency and accessibility across channels.
  
  

• Guide creative expression across retail, commercial, institutional, and employee experiences, balancing brand distinctiveness with regulatory and accessibility requirements.
  
  

AI-powered platform & automation

• Agentic workflows for design-to-code, pattern suggestions, component development and migration, unit testing, and knowledge & documentation playbooks.
  
  

• Automated accessibility controls (e.g., token-level contrast rules, Axe/Lighthouse CI, alt-text and content checks) embedded in design and build pipelines.
  
  

• Knowledge & retrieval over documentation and usage guidelines (RAG), plus evaluation frameworks, guardrails, and auditability to meet model-governance expectations.
  
  

Design operations, tooling, and research

• Own the portfolio of design and research tools (e.g., Figma Enterprise libraries/branching/tokens plugins; platforms like Matomo / UserTesting / Qualtrics) including licensing, supplier management, financials, and workflow standards.
  
  

• Define contribution workflows, templates, and content standards for documentation sites; ensure discoverability and self-service onboarding.
  
  

Accessibility, compliance, and risk

• Embed WCAG (latest versions) and regional requirements into tokens, components, patterns, and governance—treating accessibility as a default.
  
  

• Partner with Legal/Compliance, InfoSec, Model Risk, and In-Business Risk & Controls on standards, audits, and evidence to support internal controls, SOX/PCI/data-privacy, and AI model governance.
  
  

• Establish telemetry and reporting that links design-system adoption to risk reduction and customer outcomes.
  
  

Content systems & CMS integration

• Partner with Content Design and Engineering on CMS strategy (e.g., headless CMS such as Adobe Experience Manager (AEM)), ensuring components, patterns, and editorial workflows are integrated, versioned, and accessible.
  
  

• Define guidance for localization (L10n)—the translation and regional adaptation of content—alongside i18n foundations, including pluralization rules, date/number/currency formats, time zones, and RTL layout mirroring (using CSS logical properties).
  
  

• Provide standards for personalization, disclosure content, and omnichannel publishing to maintain brand and compliance at scale.
  
  

People leadership and culture

• Lead, grow, and mentor a global team of designers, developers, strategists, writers, and producers; build clear career ladders and communities of practice.
  
  

• Foster an inclusive, accountable, and outcomes-oriented culture grounded in craft excellence, technical rigor, and measurable impact.
  
  

What you'll bring:

Must-have

• 10–15+ years in digital product design and systems; 5+ years leading enterprise design systems at scale, ideally in regulated industries (banking/fintech/insurance).
  
  

• Portfolio that demonstrates design craft (UI/visual/interaction) and system leadership (tokens/components/patterns, brand evolution, before/after impact).
  
  

• Hands-on fluency with modern front-end stacks (TypeScript, React/Angular or Web Components, Storybook, design tokens, theming) and CI/CD practices; ability to set PR standards and release/versioning policies.
  
  

• Proven art direction experience with a strong visual sensibility and motion principles applied to systemized UI.
  
  

• Practical experience applying generative/agentic AI to design and engineering workflows (code generation/review, unit testing, documentation playbooks, migration support, RAG) with guardrails, evaluations, and governance.
  
  

• Deep knowledge of digital accessibility and WCAG, assistive tech, and how to embed accessibility into tokens/components and SDLC gates.
  
  

• Tooling leadership: Figma Enterprise (libraries, tokens, branching, audit), research/analytics platforms (e.g., Matomo, UserTesting, Qualtrics), documentation sites, analytics/telemetry.
  
  

• Experience shipping products across multiple businesses and functions with i18n, L10n, and RTL considerations and regulatory/locale constraints.
  
  

• Exceptional stakeholder management and communication; ability to partner with CIO/CTO, Design Leadership, CMO, Enterprise Architecture, Risk/Compliance, and Product leadership.
  
  

Nice-to-have

• Experience with headless CMS (AEM), structured content modeling, and editorial workflows.
  
  

• Familiarity with developer portals, npm/private registries, monorepos, and visual regression testing.
  
  

• Understanding of data lineage/quality as it impacts design integrity and personalization at scale.
  
  

• Exposure to design analytics, A/B testing, and tying system adoption to business KPIs.

Success measures (first 12–18 months)

• Adoption & coverage: % of journeys using system components; component/pattern coverage vs.
  
  top use cases; reduction in bespoke UI.
  
  

• Efficiency: design-to-engineering handoff time; reuse PRs; front-end defects and rework.
  
  

• Accessibility & risk: Automated checks at token/component/CI layers; measurable drop in accessibility defects; audit artifacts produced.
  
  

• AI impact: Agentic workflows in production (component development/migration tools, unit-test generation, knowledge/playbook automation); measurable cycle-time and quality improvements.
  
  

• Brand consistency: Measurable increase in consistency across businesses/functions; successful rollout of updated brand tokens and motion.
  
  

• Satisfaction: Improved designer/developer NPS/CSAT; decreased support MTTR; strong contributor pipeline.
  
  

Key partners

Design, Product, Business, and Engineering leaders
• Brand/Marketing
• Enterprise Architecture
• Platform Engineering
• InfoSec/Privacy
• Legal/Compliance
• Risk & Control
• Data/ML

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Job Family Group:

Technology

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Job Family:

Digital Design Engineering

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Time Type:

Full time

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Most Relevant Skills

Please see the requirements listed above.

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Other Relevant Skills

For complementary skills, please see above and/or contact the recruiter.

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Required Skill Profession

Other General