[Hiring] Senior Design & Template Specialist @Great Minds

Role Description

The Senior Design and Template Specialist is a multidisciplinary designer who works at the intersection of visual design, design systems, and technical implementation. This role helps bridge the Design & Brand team's established template-based workflows with emerging CMS-driven publishing models, translating creative direction into flexible, reusable systems that can scale across print and digital environments.

The Senior Design and Template Specialist will contribute to polished design solutions while building the templates, components, patterns, and structured systems that enable those solutions to be implemented consistently across platforms. This role requires equal comfort with visual design tools and technical workflows and an ability to understand both the creative intent behind a design and the systems required to reproduce it at scale.

Working across Figma, InDesign, PowerPoint, and CMS platforms, the Senior Design and Template Specialist will partner with designers, template designers, digital and cross-functional teams to translate visual concepts into accessible, reusable, and production-ready experiences.

As Great Minds' tools, platforms, and publishing workflows evolve, this role will help Design & Brand explore new approaches and establish practices for carrying strong design thinking from static templates into dynamic, component-based environments.

Responsibilities

• Translate creative direction and established visual designs into scalable templates, reusable components, styles, patterns, libraries, and documentation that promote consistency across print and digital products and platforms.
• Apply strong typography, layout, hierarchy, color, and information-design principles when developing both static and dynamic design solutions.
• Partner with Design Leads and Design and Template Specialist colleagues to preserve creative intent as designs move from prototypes into structured production systems.
• Create, revise, and maintain sophisticated templates and production systems in Figma, InDesign, PowerPoint, and other relevant platforms.
• Support consistency between print and digital expressions of the same content while recognizing the different requirements of each medium.
• Serve as a bridge between print design and template workflows and CMS-based publishing.
• Translate Figma and other design prototypes into specifications, components, and patterns that can be implemented within CMS environments.
• Work within the capabilities and constraints of CMS platforms to develop design solutions that are flexible, scalable, and maintainable.
• Collaborate with Digital, Product Management, Content & Editorial, and other cross-functional partners to align design requirements with platform capabilities.
• Participate in testing and refinement of CMS components to ensure implemented designs meet visual, functional, and accessibility expectations.
• Build clear documentation, specifications, and usage guidance for designers, production teams, vendors, and cross-functional partners.
• Apply accessibility requirements including color contrast, typography, reading order, semantic structure, and alternative-text considerations as appropriate to each platform.
• Share technical knowledge and emerging best practices with the broader Design & Brand team.
• Provide guidance to designers as workflows shift from page- and template-based thinking toward component- and system-based design.
• Contribute to a collaborative Design & Brand culture that values experimentation, learning, craftsmanship, and continuous improvement.

Qualifications

• Minimum 5 years of professional experience spanning graphic design, digital design, production design, design systems, publishing design, or a related discipline, with demonstrated experience working across both design and technical implementation.
• Portfolio or work samples demonstrating advanced visual design skills and the ability to translate design systems into functional, reusable templates, components, or digital experiences. Candidates should be prepared to discuss both their design decisions and technical implementation process.
• Extensive proficiency with Adobe Creative Suite, Figma, PowerPoint, and related design tools and experience with CMS-based digital workflows; working knowledge of HTML/CSS is a plus.
• Experience working in an evolving digital environment, including learning to create and manage design components within a CMS-based workflow.
• Strong collaboration, communication, organization, and time-management skills and the ability to communicate effectively with both creative and technical partners.
• Intellectual curiosity, attention to detail, and a willingness to learn new software, platforms, and approaches.
• Strong understanding of design systems, including reusable components, styles, variables, patterns, libraries, and documentation.
• Experience with educational publishing, complex content, or large-scale content production is preferred.
• Experience with scripting, structured content, or AI-assisted production tools is a plus.

Required Education

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent related education and/or professional experience.

Status

• Full-time

Location

• Remote, less than 10% travel

Salary

The expected base salary range for this position is $65,000-$75,000, however the offered salary may be higher or lower than the above range dependent on numerous factors including, but not limited to location, work experience, skills and internal equity considerations. The base salary is not inclusive of benefits or other incentives.

Application Process

A cover letter and resume are required to be considered for this position. New employees will be required to successfully complete a background check.

Any communication to applicants relating to the Great Minds hiring process will only come from email addresses with the domains greatminds.org or greatminds.recruitee.com. If in the course of the application or hiring process with Great Minds you are contacted through another domain, are requested to provide banking or other sensitive information, or you note any other suspicious activity, please contact [email protected].

Equal Opportunity Employer

Great Minds is an equal opportunity employer. We will extend equal opportunity to all individuals without regard to race, religion, color, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, and gender identity), national origin, disability, age, genetic information, or any other status protected under applicable federal, state, or local laws. Our policy reflects and affirms the organization’s commitment to the principles of fair employment and the elimination of all discriminatory practices.