Product Design Lead (Design Systems)

TL;DR

Product Design Lead (Design Systems): Elevating visual quality and brand expression within digital experiences across multiple iconic brands with an accent on typography, rhythm, and composition. Focus on translating editorial goals into actionable design improvements, refining design systems, and ensuring fidelity from design to production.

Location: Hybrid in London, UK, with teams coming together in the office four days a week (Monday - Thursday). Up to 10 remote days are offered per year from home or a country with a hirify.global office location.

Company

hirify.global is a global media company building products, systems, and experiences for iconic brands like Vogue, GQ, and Vanity Fair across print, digital, video, and social platforms.

What you will do

• Elevate the visual standard of digital experiences across all sites, focusing on typography, rhythm, and composition.
• Build trusted partnerships across design, editorial, product, and engineering teams.
• Translate editorial and creative goals into actionable design improvements, strengthening storytelling and usability.
• Champion design excellence within a shared system, balancing brand expression with scalability and performance.
• Take ownership of tangible quality improvements, identifying and executing high-value design opportunities.
• Model craft, curiosity, and clarity, setting the standard for quality across the design organisation.

Requirements

• Genuine love for editorial design and storytelling, understanding design's role in story expression.
• Ability to move between system and brand thinking, leveraging shared components for distinctive brand expression.
• Confidence in communicating with both brand teams (Creative Directors, Editors) and engineers, comfortable in Figma and GitHub.
• Outcome-oriented with initiative and a self-starter attitude.
• Familiarity with CMS-driven design environments and multi-brand complexity.
• Strong eye for hierarchy, typography, and composition, with an instinct for delightful interactions.
• Portfolio demonstrating strong creative brand sensitivity within shared design systems.
• Experience with editorial and content-led design for storytelling and content-rich journeys.
• Evidence of refining or extending design systems and component libraries.
• Work showcasing a craft range from systematic interfaces to expressive, identity-led experiences.
• Demonstrated implementation quality, ensuring design intent carries to production with engineers or tools (Figma, configs, tokens).
• Visual judgement with a clear point of view on quality online, showing curiosity and progression (including AI).

Culture & Benefits

• 25 days holiday (plus bank holidays) and extra days for moving house or volunteering.
• Access to a competitive pension scheme, Bupa Private Healthcare, Season ticket loans, and eye tests.
• Wellbeing tools including core hours, 10 remote days, Employee Assistance Programme, corporate gym membership, and cycle to work scheme.
• Dog-friendly office, discounts, and magazine subscriptions.
• Opportunities for personal and professional growth through the hirify.global Learning Hub.
• Employee Resource Groups to identify shared objectives and exchange ideas.