[Hiring] Lead Design Technologist, Design Systems @CSAA Insurance Group, a AAA Insurer

Role Description

The Lead Design Systems Technologist is a senior individual contributor responsible for building and evolving the technical foundation that enables consistent, high-quality digital and AI experiences across CSAA. This role translates UX standards, interaction patterns, and future-state system designs into scalable, reusable technical assets such as components, design tokens, APIs, shared packages, and implementation patterns that can be used by both development teams and AI-enabled systems.

Your Work

• Lead the Technical Structure of the Enterprise Design System
• Define and maintain the technical structure of the design system.
• Partner with UX Design to translate approved patterns into scalable structures in code.
• Maintain the connection between design tooling and code.
• Define how design-system assets are structured and governed.
• Partner with UX and platform teams to resolve design standards translation.
• Define clear ways to contribute, update, and version shared system assets.
• Set criteria for shared system assets versus product-specific solutions.
• Extend the Design System to AI
• Define and maintain technical design-system foundations for AI models.
• Establish reusable skills, tool definitions, and context sources.
• Set standards for AI agents' interactions and outputs.
• Create reusable prompt templates and orchestration patterns.
• Provide reference implementations for AI agents.
• Develop shared evaluation suites for AI behavior quality.
• Ensure system assets are easily discoverable and understandable.
• Define governance for approved AI capabilities.
• Enable Design-to-Development Readiness
• Establish tooling and connections between design and code before development.
• Decide on integration levels for design definitions and code.
• Stay engaged during delivery to trace issues.
• Help teams understand design flow into the technical system.
• Make the system easier to adopt for new teams.
• Partner with Engineering and Architecture on Realization
• Define structure and requirements for shared system assets.
• Collaborate with Engineering on feasibility and sequencing.
• Clarify ownership across shared assets and architecture.
• Build prototypes to test structural decisions.
• Ensure implementation reflects approved UX intent and standards.
• Drive Adoption and Self-Sufficiency
• Work across engagement models based on complexity.
• Build documentation and tooling for independent use.
• Track adoption and reuse across teams.
• Support questions from engineers and designers.
• Partner Across the Design System Ecosystem
• Serve as a cross-functional connector for the system.
• Translate future-state workflows into reusable foundations.
• Communicate system constraints and roadmap clearly.
• Contribute to the Practice
• Help mature CSAA's Enterprise Systems Design practice.
• Contribute to onboarding and domain materials.
• Stay current on evolving design systems.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience.
• 8+ years of experience in design systems, front-end engineering, or experience architecture.
• Strong hands-on front-end engineering experience with modern component frameworks.
• Experience implementing and governing design tokens and component libraries.
• Practical experience with design-to-code workflows.
• Working fluency with AI-assisted development tools.
• Ability to define structure and technical direction of shared systems.
• Strong written communication skills.
• Demonstrated ability to influence across teams.
• Comfort working through ambiguity.
• Ability to translate between design and engineering audiences.

Requirements

• Degree in Computer Science, Human-Computer Interaction, Design Technology, or related field.
• Relevant training or certification in front-end engineering, design systems, or AI-related disciplines.
• Experience building or governing AI capabilities.
• Experience with evaluation and observability practices for AI systems.
• Experience in regulated industries.
• Experience supporting employee-facing and customer-facing products.
• Experience adapting design-system standards to third-party platforms.
• Experience creating adoption or contribution models for shared systems.
• Experience coaching engineers or designers.
• Familiarity with accessibility standards.

Benefits

• Total compensation package with annual bonus eligibility.
• 401(k) with a company match.
• Flexible workplace culture.
• Commitment to inclusion and belonging.
• Focus on sustainability and community resilience.