Instacart

La Canada, Utrecht

Sr. Product Designer II - Design Systems

REMOTE SENIOR

Posted 8 days ago

Quick Summary

Role Overview

Instacart is seeking a design-first, technically fluent product designer to lead the evolution of their design system as a product. You will partner with engineering and design technologists to raise quality, usability, and scalability across customer, shopper, and retailer platforms.

Key Responsibilities

Drive the design system roadmap while aligning stakeholders on a forward-looking vision
Define system UX including components, patterns, interaction states, and accessibility defaults
Lead end-to-end token strategy for theming, density, and extensibility
Establish governance standards for contributions, quality reviews, and versioning processes
Create implementation-aware specs and collaborate in Figma and Storybook workflows
Build design enablement tools like linting rules and AI-assisted support workflows

Requirements Snapshot

Minimum of 6 years of experience in product design with a focus on design systems
Technical fluency in Figma component libraries and Storybook workflows
Hands-on experience with token pipelines and semantic token architectures
Proven competency in accessibility standards such as WCAG 2.1 AA
Demonstrated use of AI or automation to improve design delivery speed and quality

Expected Impact

This role will unlock velocity and consistency for product teams serving millions of customers by establishing a durable source of truth. By reducing system drift and adoption friction, you will ensure high-fidelity design-to-code execution and power future AI-assisted workflows.

This summary was generated from the original job posting (AI-assisted, human-reviewed).
For full details, see the description below.

Job Description

We're transforming the grocery industry

At Instacart, we invite the world to share love through food because we believe everyone should have access to the food they love and more time to enjoy it together. Where others see a simple need for grocery delivery, we see exciting complexity and endless opportunity to serve the varied needs of our community. We work to deliver an essential service that customers rely on to get their groceries and household goods, while also offering safe and flexible earnings opportunities to Instacart Personal Shoppers.

Instacart has become a lifeline for millions of people, and we’re building the team to help push our shopping cart forward. If you’re ready to do the best work of your life, come join our table.

Instacart is a Flex First team

There’s no one-size fits all approach to how we do our best work. Our employees have the flexibility to choose where they do their best work—whether it’s from home, an office, or your favorite coffee shop—while staying connected and building community through regular in-person events. Learn more about our flexible approach to where we work.

Overview

Instacart’s Design Systems & Foundations team builds the shared components, tokens, and guidance that power customer, shopper, retailer, and internal tools at scale. We’re looking for a design-first, technically fluent product designer to lead the evolution of our design system as a product—raising quality, usability, scalability, and adoption across multiple product surfaces.

In this role, you’ll partner closely with engineering and design technologists to ensure design-to-code fidelity, integrate guidance directly inside design and development workflows, and shape a durable “source of truth” that can power automation, guardrails, and AI-assisted workflows. You’ll collaborate with an 8-person foundations team and cross-functional partners to unlock velocity and consistency for product teams serving millions of customers.

About the Job

Own and drive the design system roadmap—prioritizing by product needs, system health, and adoption friction—while aligning stakeholders on a clear, forward-looking vision.
Define and evolve system UX: components, patterns, interaction states, responsive behavior, motion, and accessibility defaults that scale across products and platforms.
Lead token strategy end to end (primitive and semantic), including theming, density, and extensibility, and partner with engineering to maintain consistent component APIs.
Establish strong governance and lifecycle management: contribution standards, quality bars, review processes, versioning, deprecations, and clear migration plans to reduce system drift.
Create implementation-aware specs with edge cases, constraints, usage guidance, and acceptance criteria; collaborate in component-based workflows (e.g., Figma libraries, Storybook) to ensure design-to-code fidelity.
Build design enablement in context—linting rules, templates, and plugin experiences—supported by a structured knowledge model (rules, constraints, examples) that powers automation and AI-assisted support.
Use AI tools intentionally to streamline audits, consistency checks, migrations, and spec generation; contribute to AI-assisted workflows that help teams adopt changes safely.
Measure adoption and impact, identify workflow friction, and execute enablement programs that reduce rework, raise consistency, and accelerate safe system evolution.

About You

Minimum Qualifications

6+ years of experience in product design (or equivalent), including shipping and maintaining a design system adopted by multiple product teams.
Portfolio showcasing design systems mastery (components, patterns, tokens, governance) and cross-platform consistency; portfolio link required.
Technical fluency collaborating in component-based workflows (e.g., Figma component libraries and Storybook or equivalent) with a strong understanding of how implementation constraints shape UX.
Hands-on experience with token pipelines and tooling (e.g., CSS variables, semantic token architectures) and writing implementation-aware specs with acceptance criteria.
Proven accessibility competency applied to systems (e.g., WCAG 2.1 AA) with accessible defaults and patterns.
Demonstrated use of AI/automation to improve delivery speed and quality for design systems (e.g., audits, migration planning, consistency checks, spec generation).
Experience driving system adoption through metrics, deprecation/migration programs, and cross-functional enablement.
Bachelor’s degree in Design, HCI, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.

Preferred Qualifications

Experience with AI-assisted coding and design environments (e.g., Cursor, Claude Code) and building Figma plugins or linting/guardrail tooling.
Track record implementing scalable theming, density, and semantic token strategies across multiple products or platforms.
Experience facilitating design sprints, co-creation workshops, or component governance reviews with cross-functional stakeholders.
Data fluency leveraging telemetry, adoption metrics, and experiments to inform system roadmap and deprecation strategies.
Familiarity with versioned monorepos or multi-package design system releases, including change management and migration planning.

#LI-Remote

Instacart provides highly market-competitive compensation and benefits in each location where our employees work. This role is remote and the base pay range for a successful candidate is dependent on their permanent work location. Please review our Flex First remote work policy here. Currently, we are only hiring in the following provinces: Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia, and Nova Scotia.

Offers may vary based on many factors, such as candidate experience and skills required for the role. Additionally, this role is eligible for a new hire equity grant as well as annual refresh grants. Please read more about our benefits offerings here.

For Canadian based candidates, the base pay ranges for a successful candidate are listed below.

CAN

$171,000—$180,500 CAD

View Original Job Post

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