Senior Product Designer - Design Systems

About us

The Financial Times ranks among the world’s top news organisations. It is known globally for its authority, integrity, and accuracy. Its mission is to provide quality information and services around the world.

At the FT, curiosity flourishes and ambitious thinking is valued. Here, you’re given the chance to reach millions, create work that matters and deliver impartial journalism in a polarised world.

In our warm, collaborative culture, you’ll connect with a diverse community of experts who support your growth, career aspirations and wellbeing.

Your future at the FT will be filled with opportunities that challenge and motivate you. With no set path, you’ll uncover new skills and build a career that can lead you anywhere.

Develop a newsworthy career at the FT.

Our dedication to inclusion and fairness

We believe everyone deserves an equal chance to contribute, succeed, and reach their full potential. This involves making sure everyone is listened to, respected, and appreciated, while recognizing and eliminating obstacles that might hinder progress. Our pledge is to be an employer example, rooted in inclusion and fairness for all.

We want every application to receive fair and thoughtful consideration; therefore, all applications are assessed by a member of our recruitment team, not by AI.

The Role

We’re seeking a seasoned Senior Product Designer to become part of our Design Systems team, located at Bracken House in London.

You’ll contribute significantly to the development and growth of Origami, the FT’s design system, supporting teams across the business in delivering unified, accessible, and high-quality digital experiences.

You will work alongside designers, engineers, and product managers to develop shared elements, components, and instructions. This supports teams in designing and building products that reflect FT’s distinct style.

The role covers web and mobile, requiring careful judgment about where common patterns ensure consistency and where platform-specific methods provide improved experiences.

You’ll also explore how AI can support the future of design systems. From speeding up component development and documentation to helping teams prototype and build using Origami, you’ll test emerging approaches and find opportunities to improve how we work.

Combining strong design craft with hands-on technical skills, you’ll help ensure Origami remains dependable, accessible and relevant as our products and technologies evolve.

Key Responsibilities

- Shape and develop Origami’s shared foundations, components, and design guidance, making sure they address the evolving needs of FT product teams.

- Contribute to the design system’s forward plan, finding opportunities to improve its value, quality and adoption.

- Partner with designers, engineers, and product managers to comprehend product demands, recognize deficiencies, and devise workable solutions.

- Lead design work from problem definition and exploration through prototyping, validation and implementation.

- Apply strong visual and interaction design skills to develop consistent, accessible, and high-quality experiences across web and mobile.

- Work closely with engineers to evaluate technical feasibility and ensure designs translate into reliable implementations.

- Create clear documentation, guidance and examples that help teams understand, contribute to and adopt Origami.

- Support colleagues in using the design system, sharing expertise and building confidence across teams.

- Explore AI-assisted approaches to developing and maintaining components, design foundations and documentation, including generating code for review.

- Explore how AI tools can apply Origami’s principles, foundations, and components to aid prototyping and product development.

- Test AI-enabled workflows with designers and engineers against real product needs, assessing their usefulness, quality and technical suitability.

- Use feedback and evidence to evaluate improvements in adoption, design quality and the experience of working with Origami.

Required Skills and Experience

- Significant product design experience, with strong visual design, interaction design and prototyping skills.

- Experience creating, maintaining or evolving design systems, reusable components or shared patterns across products or teams.

- A portfolio demonstrating high-quality product design and design systems work, clearly explaining your contribution and impact.

- Advanced experience using Figma, including component libraries, variables and design tokens.

- Experience building interactive prototypes using code, with a working knowledge of HTML and CSS.

- Strong technical understanding and confidence collaborating with engineers on feasibility, implementation and design trade-offs.

- Experience in designing for web and mobile, understanding platform standards and recognizing when different strategies are fitting.

- Knowledge of accessibility principles and experience applying them to components, patterns and digital experiences.

- Experience using or exploring AI-assisted design and development tools, with sound judgement about their opportunities and limitations.

- Experience leading cross-functional design work, navigating ambiguity and influencing decisions without formal authority.

- Strong communication and documentation skills, with the ability to clarify design decisions and foster relationships across teams.

- A collaborative approach focused on interconnected processes and the ability to help others understand and adopt common design practices.

Desirable

- Experience supporting the adoption of a design system across multiple product teams.

- Experience investigating how AI tools can apply design system guidance, components, or code to aid product development.

- Experience assessing the effectiveness of design systems through feedback, usage evidence or measures of quality and adoption.

What's in it for You?

Our benefits vary by location but we are committed to providing best-in-class perks across all our offices. These include generous annual leave, medical cover, inclusive parental leave packages, subsidised gym memberships and opportunities to give back to the community. Full details of our benefits are available here.

We currently operate a hybrid model which requires staff to work onsite 50% of the time, subject to role requirements & regular review. While flexible working requests will be considered, not all patterns are suitable for all roles. We believe this balanced approach supports flexibility and protects our culture, making collaboration and communication easier, building stronger relationships and team cohesion, and supporting peer learning. We reserve discretion on reasonable notice to change this approach either generally or for specific individuals or teams.

Accessibility

We are a disability confident employer and Valuable 500 signatory.

Kindly let us know if you require any reasonable modifications or tailored support as part of the application process or to help you attend an interview. If you want to talk about your needs or have any questions, email [email protected] and one of our team members will be happy to support you.

Further Information

At the FT, we support innovation and the use of technology and accept that individuals may demonstrate AI tool use as part of their application. You may use AI to assist your application. However, all information submitted must be truthful and clearly represent your skills, experience, and qualifications.

Candidates should know that the use of AI during the application process might be observed to guarantee a fair and transparent hiring experience for everyone.

Please be cautious of fake job listings and offers pretending to come from the Financial Times. Genuine opportunities will always direct you to apply via the official Financial Times careers page. The FT will never request financial details, payments, or references to third parties during hiring. If you doubt a job posting's authenticity or notice suspicious activity, contact [email protected].

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