Design Systems - Experience Designer

 

At Sainsbury’s we believe that the customer should be at the heart of everything we do. Our vision is to create the easiest, most enjoyable experiences that better serve our customers’ ever-changing needs. We work across a range of products and services to deliver distinctive, integrated, and consistent experiences for our customers and colleagues across Sainsbury’s Group - which includes Sainsbury’s, Argos, Nectar, Habitat, Tu, and Smart Charge. 

We drive brilliant experiences across all our brands in-store and online, operating in agile teams and squads, working seamlessly with teams right across the business to make the most of the exceptional knowledge, insight and talent we have.

 

The Role:

We are seeking a talented and passionate Experience Designer to join our Design System team. You will be instrumental in evolving and maintaining our multi-brand design system, empowering our product teams to build consistent, accessible, and delightful user experiences across all our platforms (Web, iOS and Android).

Responsibilities:

Design System Design & Maintenance Design, document, and maintain reusable UI components, patterns and guidance for Web, iOS, and Android platforms. Continuously ensuring that our design system is accessible, performative, and adheres to brand standards. Partnering with our design system engineers to ensure proper implementation and integration of design system components. Lead and facilitate UI audits, pattern consolidation and design clean-up, driving consistency across complex product spaces. Contribute to the ongoing evolution and improvement of the design system architecture. Maintain and collect feedback around the design token infrastructure.

 

Collaboration & Advocacy:

Work closely with Product Designers, Product Managers, and Engineers to understand their needs and gather feedback to further improve our Design System (Fable). Educate and advocate for the adoption of the design system across design and development teams. Facilitate workshops and training sessions to onboard new starters and continue to keep the design community well informed of updates. Present design system updates and progress to stakeholders.

 

Innovation:

Stay up to date with industry trends, best practices, and new technologies related to design systems.

 

What we're looking for: 

Industry experience as a UX / UI Designer is essential. As are the core technical skills outlined in the role details above. Alongside this, we're looking for certain behaviours and competency skills. These skills will help you thrive in a dynamic team like ours.  

Skills we're looking for:  

Experience of working on a design system. Knowledge of how to design inclusively and an active interest for digital accessibility. Strong systems thinking and interaction design skills. Influence and negotiation skills. Adaptable to changing priorities, complexities and unknowns. Confidence to influence and challenge stakeholders. Taking the initiative and driving change. Experience of working with a design system. Tailoring your approach for different audiences. Expert proficiency in Figma, particularly with components, libraries, variables and tokens.

 

Bonus skills:

Proficiency in crafting native app experiences for iOS and Android. A technical understanding of design systems and programming frameworks (React, Tailwind, Jetpack Compose, SwiftUI)

 

Essential Criteria -

Systems thinking - as a Design System designer you need the ability to think holistically, foresee how components evolve across platforms, ensuring they are consistent and efficient solutions at scale. Cross-functional communication and collaboration - as a Design System designer it is important to be able to share designs to both technical and senior stakeholders. Proficient in Figma - at Sainsbury's, Figma is our Design System tool and so it is essential that a Design System designer understands features like components, variables, auto layout, and libraries. Problem solving - as a Design System designer it is important to identify inconsistencies, untangle complex challenges, and propose scalable, accessible solutions that prioritize user needs.

 

Support we will provide:

A thriving design culture, opportunity to discuss and share work with open, collaborative feedback A mature design system and set of standards to work with  Research, accessibility and UX copywriting expertise

 

Tips and guidance on what we look for in portfolios: https://medium.com/p/1ace9c422d2