Contract Design Systems Lead

About the Role

We are looking for a Design Systems Lead to join our team on a 3-6-month contract, starting immediately. This role is critical in establishing, repairing, and scaling our design system, ensuring consistency, usability, and efficiency across multiple brands. You will be responsible for quickly getting our design system off the ground, creating scalable, accessible, and high-quality UI components in Figma, and collaborating closely with front-end engineers to build a semantic layer that enables theming and multi-brand support.

This role requires deep expertise in design systems strategy, atomic design principles, Figma component creation, and design-token-driven development. You will be the primary owner of our design system, driving its adoption and ensuring seamless integration into our product teams' workflows.

Responsibilities

• Build, refine, and scale a comprehensive, multi-brand design system from the ground up, ensuring consistency across our products.
• Develop and maintain a robust, reusable, and accessible Figma component library, leveraging auto-layout, variants, and tokens for maximum flexibility.
• Establish design principles, guidelines, and documentation to enable designers, engineers, and stakeholders to use the system efficiently.
• Partner closely with front-end engineers to define a semantic layer that enables theming, ensuring that the design system scales across multiple brands.
• Implement design tokens and structured UI foundations to create a seamless bridge between design and code.
• Audit and repair existing design system components, identifying inconsistencies and improving usability and performance.
• Advocate for best practices in accessibility, responsiveness, and scalable UI patterns, ensuring inclusivity and usability.
• Act as the primary point of contact for the design system, guiding adoption, training teams, and providing support as needed.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience in Product Design, UI/UX, or Design Systems, with a focus on building and scaling design systems.
• Deep expertise in Figma, including auto-layout, components, variants, design tokens, and documentation workflows.
• Strong understanding of atomic design principles, accessibility standards (WCAG), and front-end frameworks (React, CSS, design tokens, theming approaches).
• Proven experience collaborating with front-end developers to implement design systems in code.
• Strong ability to balance speed with quality, ensuring the system is quickly operational while maintaining scalability.
• Excellent communication and documentation skills, with the ability to advocate for design system adoption across cross-functional teams.
• Experience working in agile, fast-moving product environments, particularly within multi-brand or multi-product organizations.
• Self-starter with the ability to drive initiatives independently while aligning with broader product and brand goals.

Contract Details

• Duration: 3-month contract with option to extend
• Location: Remote (US-based)
• Start Date: Immediate
• Compensation: $75/hour

This is an exciting opportunity to lay the foundation for a scalable, high-impact design system and drive meaningful change in how our products are designed and built. If you're a systems thinker, Figma expert, and a hands-on builder who thrives in fast-moving environments, we’d love to hear from you!

About Spark Networks, Inc 

At Spark Networks, we’re dedicated to connecting people and sparking meaningful relationships.  As a global dating company, we offer a range of premium and freemium apps that welcome millions of singles worldwide. Our mission is to help people find love and have fun along the way. 

Our biggest brand, Zoosk, welcomes 40 million singles to its platform and is available in 80+ countries, translated into 25 languages.  We also offer niche brands that cater to specific age groups and religious communities, such as Silver Singles, Christian Mingle and JDate.  Despite our diverse brand portfolio, our mission remains consistent: to help singles around the world find love and enjoy the journey.  We pride ourselves on ensuri