Sr Product Designer, Design Systems Foundations

The opportunity

Are you passionate about solving design problems at scale, and crafting simple and elegant solutions for complex problems? Adobe Design is seeking a Product Designer to join Document Cloud Foundations and work on the design system.

Your work will ultimately benefit millions of Adobe customers — helping Adobe’s designers and engineering teams deliver great products and services.

As a senior team member, you’ll participate in key technical planning activities, such as feature discovery, system architecture, requirements definition, project scope, and delivery expectations. Team members participate in key planning activities, such as feature discovery, system architecture, requirements definition, project scope, and delivery.

What you’ll do

• 0→1 design system efforts for an emerging team within Document Cloud, defining system architecture, foundational primitives, components, and scalable patterns. 

• Design, document, and maintain reusable UI components, interaction patterns, and guidelines that ensure consistency and quality across products. 

• Partner closely with engineering to align on implementation strategies, tokens, and component APIs.

• Establish and evolve design system principles, standards, and contribution models to support long-term scalability and governance. 

• Audit existing product experiences to identify inconsistencies, redundancies, and opportunities for systematization. 

• Collaborate with product designers to translate product requirements into flexible, extensible system solutions. 

• Champion accessibility, inclusivity, and performance as core principles within the design system. 

• Mentor other designers on systems thinking, component design, and best practices for working with a design system.

What you need to succeed

Must-haves:

• 5+ years of experience in product design, with a strong portfolio demonstrating experience designing or contributing to a design system at scale and cross-platform.

• Familiarity with design tokens, theming, and scalable styling systems. 

• Experience collaborating on or contributing to component libraries (e.g., Storybook, Figma libraries, or similar tools). 

• Understanding of accessibility standards (WCAG) and how to apply them systematically across components.

• A history of close collaboration with design, product management, software development, and users from ideation through implementation.

• Strong documentation skills, with an ability to create clear, scalable guidance for diverse audiences.

• Comfort operating in ambiguous, evolving spaces, especially early-stage system work.

Nice-to-haves:

• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to clearly articulate a multi-level problem space and strategy behind design decisions to stakeholders of all levels.

• Working knowledge of front-end technologies (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, or frameworks like React) and how design systems are implemented in code.

• Experience defining governance models, contribution workflows, or adoption strategies for design systems. 

• Experience influencing without authority across multiple teams and product areas. 

• Experience measuring and improving design system adoption and impact.

Preferred Accessibility Design Skills:

• Experience designing accessible and inclusive interfaces for people with disabilities.

• Understanding of applying WCAG conformance criteria in design, specifically testing comps, wireframes, and prototypes for accessibility standards.

• Accessibility certifications CPACC, WAS, CPWA, or ADS from the IAAP preferred.

About Adobe Design

Adobe Design is the multidisciplinary, global organization behind Adobe experiences. Our full-stack team includes design researchers, design engineers, experience designers, brand designers, content strategists, and program managers dedicated to delivering exceptional experiences for Adobe users.

About Adobe

Adobe empowers everyone to create through innovative platforms and tools that unleash creativity, productivity and personalized customer experiences. Adobe’s industry-leading offerings including Adobe Acrobat Studio, Adobe Express, Adobe Firefly, Creative Cloud, Adobe Experience Platform, Adobe Experience Manager, and GenStudio enable people and businesses to turn ideas into impact, powered by AI and driven by human ingenuity.

Our 30,000+ employees worldwide are creating the future and raising the bar as we drive the next decade of growth. We’re on a mission to hire the very best and believe in creating a company culture where all employees are empowered to make an impact. At Adobe, we believe that great ideas can come from anywhere in the organization. The next big idea could be yours. 

Let’s Adobe together

At Adobe, we believe in creating a company culture where all employees are empowered to make an impact. Learn more about Adobe life, including our values and culture, focus on people, purpose and community, Adobe for All, comprehensive benefits programs, the stories we tell, the customers we serve, and how you can help us advance our mission of empowering everyone to create.

Adobe is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based on gender, race or color, ethnicity or national origin, age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, veteran status, or any other protected characteristic. Learn more.

Adobe aims to make our Careers website and recruiting process accessible to any and all users. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation to navigate our website or complete the application process, email accommodations@adobe.com or call +1 408-536-3015. 

AI Use Guidelines for Interviews:
Our interviews are designed to reflect your own skills and thinking. The use of AI or recording tools during live interviews is not permitted unless explicitly invited by the interviewer or approved in advance as part of a reasonable accommodation. If these tools are used inappropriately or in a way that misrepresents your work, your application may not move forward in the process.

At Adobe, we empower employees to innovate with AI — and we look for candidates eager to do the same. As part of the hiring experience, we provide clear guidance on where AI is encouraged during the process and where it’s restricted during live interviews. See how we think about AI in the hiring experience.

 

Expected Pay Range:

Our compensation reflects the cost of labor across several  U.S. geographic markets, and we pay differently based on those defined markets. The U.S. pay range for this position is $124,600 -- $234,250 annually. Pay within this range varies by work location and may also depend on job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. Your recruiter can share more about the specific salary range for the job location during the hiring process.

 



In California, the pay range for this position is $161,800 - $234,250


At Adobe, for sales roles starting salaries are expressed as total target compensation (TTC = base + commission), and short-term incentives are in the form of sales commission plans.  Non-sales roles starting salaries are expressed as base salary and short-term incentives are in the form of the Annual Incentive Plan (AIP).

In addition, certain roles may be eligible for long-term incentives in the form of a new hire equity award.

State-Specific Notices:

California:

Fair Chance Ordinances

Adobe will consider qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records for employment in accordance with state and local laws and “fair chance” ordinances.

Colorado:

Application Window Notice

If this role is open to hiring in Colorado (as listed on the job posting), the application window will remain open until at least the date and time stated above in Pacific Time, in compliance with Colorado pay transparency regulations. If this role does not have Colorado listed as a hiring location, no specific application window applies, and the posting may close at any time based on hiring needs.

Massachusetts:

Massachusetts Legal Notice

It is unlawful in Massachusetts to require or administer a lie detector test as a condition of employment or continued employment. An employer who violates this law shall be subject to criminal penalties and civil liability.