Lead Design System Designer - 697112
Whatfix
Design
Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
Who are we?
Whatfix is an AI platform advancing the “userization” of enterprise applications, empowering companies to maximize the ROI of their digital investments. Technology needs adoption. It’s no different for AI. As AI reshapes roles, workflows, and human-machine interactions, it also introduces new layers of complexity and user friction. This is where Whatfix plays a pivotal role. A decade old DNA of empowering people to succeed with technology and not replacing them. We call this philosophy Userization: the belief that technology must adapt to the user, not the other way around.
At the heart of userization philosophy is ScreenSense, our proprietary AI engine, which continuously interprets both the context of what users are doing in an application or an AI tool and the intent behind their actions. By combining these signals, Whatfix delivers real-time guidance, nudges, knowledge, and automation directly in the flow of work.
This intelligence powers our entire product suite.
- Digital Adoption helps users get productive faster.
- Product Analytics uncovers friction and closes adoption gaps.
- Mirror allows employees to train in safe, simulated environments.
These are ur embedded with Whatfix AI Agents which supercharge creation, insights, and user guidance.
Our upcoming AI-first products are already creating a buzz in the market.
- Seek is an AI-native assistant that not only knows your business context but can also act across applications to get work done on your behalf.
- Whatfix Mirror 2.0 is the world’s only System plus Role simulation with a complete assessment to lead the Gen AI simulation category.
Together, these products reflect Whatfix’s commitment to building enterprise-ready AI teammates that maximize productivity and ROI. It gives users a unified, intelligent way to find answers across systems, apps, and knowledge silos and helps anyone looking to deliver fast and contextual answers.
Whatfix is bridging the gap between rapid technological change and human enablement—ensuring AI is not only embedded but also usable, trusted, and outcome-driven for every employee.
At Whatfix, we’re not just making software easier—we’re making AI work for people.
The company has seven offices across the US, India, UK, Germany, Singapore, and Australia and a presence across 40+ countries.
Customers: 700+ enterprise customers, including 80+ Fortune 500 companies such as Shell, Schneider Electric, and UPS Supply Chain Solutions.
Investors: A total of ~$270 million USD has been raised as yet. Most recently Series E round of $125 Million USD led by Warburg Pincus, with participation from existing investor SoftBank Vision Fund 2. Other investors include Cisco Investments, Eight Roads Ventures (A division of Fidelity Investments), Dragoneer, Peak XV Partners, and Stellaris Venture Partners.
Whatfix’s leadership is consistently recognized across top industry analysts and business rankings:
- Won the 2025 AI Breakthrough Award for the Overall AI-based Analytics Solution of the Year
- Only DAP to be recognized as a “Leader” across various DAP reports for the past 5+ years by leading analyst firms like Gartner, Forrester, IDC, and Everest Group.
- With over 45% YoY sustainable annual recurring revenue (ARR) growth, Whatfix is among the “Top 50 Indian Software Companies” as per G2 Best Software Awards.
- Named a Gartner Customers’ Choice for DAP for the second year in a row (2024 and 2025)—the only vendor in the market to earn this distinction consecutively.
- We also boast a star rating of 4.6 on G2 Crowd, 4.5 on Gartner Peer Insights, and a super-high CSAT of 99.8%
- Stevie Award winner in the category (Bronze): Customer Service Department of the Year – Computer Software - 100 or More Employees.
- Winner of the ISG Paragon Innovation Award in partnership with Sophos (customer) for the EMEA region and finalist in the Transformation Award category.
- RemoteTech Breakthrough Awards winner for “Software Asset Management Solution of the Year”
These recognitions are matched by business performance:
- Highest-Ranking DAP on 2023 Deloitte Technology Fast 500™ North America for Fifth Consecutive Year
- Listed on the Financial Times & Statista's High-Growth Companies Asia-Pacific 2025 list.
- Won the Silver for Stevie's Employer of the Year 2023 – Computer Software category and also recognized as Great Place to Work 2022-2023
- Only DAP to be among the top 35% companies worldwide in sustainability excellence with EcoVadis Bronze Medal
Be one of the key Leaders in this awesome journey of building a billion-dollar company!
ABOUT THE ROLE
Whatfix builds software at the intersection of enterprise complexity and end-user experience. Our products guide millions of users through the tools they use every day — and the quality of that experience depends, in part, on the strength of the system behind it.
We're hiring a Lead Design System Designer to own, rebuild, and evolve the Whatfix design system. The system serves approximately 16 product designers and engineers across the entire company. You're not inheriting something to maintain. You're evolving a system that needs to be rebuilt — incrementally, without forcing breaking changes across a live product portfolio. You know the difference between the right long-term architecture and what can actually ship today.
This is a specialist role. You understand the engineering surface. You work directly in system code. You can set up a Figma component library that is genuinely usable — not just visually organized. And you have the design sensibility and structured thinking to create a system people actually want to use.
You may have come up through different titles — Design Engineer, Creative Technologist, Systems Designer. What connects them is how you move: from the psychology of a user decision, to the pixel-level expression of it, to the code that makes it real. These aren't separate disciplines to you. They're different brushes. And you've welcomed every technological breakthrough that makes each of those layers more accessible than the last.
You'll report directly to the Head of Product Research and Design and operate with significant ownership and organizational reach.
WHAT YOU'LL OWN
System Architecture and Rebuild
- Audit the existing design system and define a rebuild strategy — token architecture, variable structure, component hierarchy, and scalability roadmap.
- Design and implement a token architecture that is correct, scalable, and forward-compatible with AI and agentic tooling.
- Establish naming conventions, component taxonomy, and documentation standards that work for designers and engineers alike.
- Build for interoperability — the system must be usable by the tools building on top of it, not just the people.
- Design the migration path as carefully as the destination — versioning strategy, deprecation patterns, and incremental adoption that doesn't require the product org to stop and refactor.
Component Design and Engineering
- Own the Figma component library: properly structured, variable-driven, and 1:1 with what's built in code.
- Work directly in the design system codebase — updating components, managing slots, maintaining parity between the design and engineering surfaces.
- Define the full component contract: usage guidelines, do's and don'ts, required and optional attributes, edge cases, and full state coverage.
- Integrate Storybook as a living reference. The design system is not a UI kit. It's a documented, testable system.
AI-Native Patterns
- Design and document components and patterns for AI-powered and agent-driven experiences — disclosure requirements, generative content containers, confidence indicators, and interaction models that are still being defined across the industry.
- Bake AI patterns into the component architecture, not on top of it.
- Treat novel AI use cases as design problems specific to Whatfix. The work here is not adopting what other systems have done — it's designing for our problems.
Centralized Capability
- Architect for shared concerns: internationalization, accessibility, content density, theming, and directionality.
- Ensure these capabilities live in the system and don't require repeated implementation at the product level.
Adoption and Observability
- Define success metrics for the design system — not just component coverage, but adoption rates, usage patterns, and the gap between what's in the system and what actually ships.
- Drive adoption across 16 designers and the engineering organization through clear documentation, enablement, and direct partnership.
- Make the system easy to use correctly and hard to misuse.
WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR
Required
- 6+ years in product or UX design, with at least 3 years focused on design systems work as the core of your practice — not as a side responsibility.
- Demonstrated experience building or significantly rebuilding a design system from a broken or incomplete state.
- Deep token architecture knowledge: semantic layers, component tokens, global tokens, and how to structure them for scalability and AI tooling compatibility.
- Hands-on experience working in design system code — component updates, slot architecture, direct contribution to the codebase (React or equivalent).
- Figma expertise beyond aesthetics: components built with variants, variables, and properties that maintain 1:1 parity with what engineering ships.
- Experience with Storybook or equivalent documentation and component testing environments.
- Actively working at the frontier of AI-native UX — disclosure patterns, agent interfaces, generative content states. The patterns aren't settled and the field is moving fast. We're looking for someone comfortable operating at that edge, not someone with a finished playbook.
- Strong documentation skills: you define what components are for, how they behave, and when not to use them — not just what they look like.
- Understanding of content density: how to design for complex enterprise interfaces without sacrificing usability.
Nice to Have
- Experience implementing internationalization at the system level.
- Familiarity with observability or analytics tooling applied to design system adoption.
- Prior work on a design system serving a large, multi-team product organization.
- Accessibility auditing experience and practice baking compliance into component standards.
HOW YOU'LL SHOW UP
- You build, not just spec. You're not describing what engineers should build. You're in the system, making it work, and holding the line on parity between what's in Figma and what ships in code.
- You think in constructs. You understand how a design system is structured before you touch a file. Token hierarchy, component composition, slot contracts — these aren't abstract ideas. They're the work.
- You have taste and the rigor to back it up. Strong design sensibility, but you don't use it to copy what other systems have done. You design for Whatfix's specific problems and you can articulate why your decisions are right for this context.
- You design for engineers and agents, not just designers. The system has to work across every surface — for the humans consuming it and the agents building with it. You understand the engineering contract and communicate in terms engineers find useful.
- You evolve without breaking. You understand that a design system serves a live product portfolio. You sequence improvements to move the system forward without creating disruption that stops teams in their tracks.
You measure what you build. A design system without adoption is a style guide. You define success, track it, and use it to evolve the system.
#LI: #Onsite
#WorkType: #Onsite
Perks & Benefits (India)
- Best-in-class medical insurance coverage
- Free lunch & dinner buffet
- Doorstep cab drop facility
- Education sponsorship
- Internal job transfer & global mobility programs
- Scope to represent Whatfix at global events
- We also provide uncapped incentives, bonus plans and opportunities to employees (especially those in GTM teams) to travel to meet our global customers
Note:
- We strive to live and breathe our Cultural Principles and encourage employees to demonstrate some of these core values - Customer First; Empathy; Transparency; Fail Fast and scale Fast; No Hierarchies for Communication; Deep Dive and innovate; Trust, Do it as you own it;
- We are an equal opportunity employer and value diverse people because of and not in spite of the differences. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status
- At Whatfix, we deeply value collaboration, innovation, and human connection. We believe that being together in the office five days a week fosters open communication, strengthens our sense of community, and accelerates innovation—ultimately helping us achieve our goals more effectively. At the same time, we recognize the importance of flexibility in balancing personal and professional priorities. To support this, we offer the option to work from home up to two days per month.
- In any situation that requires additional flexibility, we’re open to considering exceptions on a case-by-case basis to ensure you’re supported in managing both work and life seamlessly.