Royal Mail is changing how we serve our customers, and the role of design has never been more important in shaping how we do that. We are in the most significant period of transformation in our 500-year history, rebuilding the services that millions of people rely on every day.
To do that well, we need exceptional Designers who can connect strategy with delivery, bring people along with evidence and clear thinking, and set standards that elevate the work of everyone around them.
We are looking for a Design System Specialist to own the design side of our design system: token architecture, component design, governance and roadmap. You will be the connecting point between Engineering, Product Management and Design, balancing competing priorities to keep the system moving forward.
If you're energised by the chance to make design work at scale, we would love to hear from you.
About the Role
As Design System Specialist, you will own the design system as the shared foundation product teams build and automate from. This includes design language and principles, design tokens, the component library, the Figma-to-code contract, and the documentation and governance needed to ensure integrity and adoption at scale.
You will help keep Royal Mail's brand identity consistent across every surface.
This individual contributor role sits at the intersection of Design, Engineering and Product Management. You will plan and manage the design system roadmap, operate agents that monitor drift, generate documentation and support design QA, with your focus on architecture decisions, judgement calls and stakeholder alignment.
What You Will Be Doing
At its core, this role is about building the foundation that lets the rest of the Design and Engineering organisation move faster, with more consistency and less rework.
Roadmap and Stakeholder Management
Plan and manage the design system roadmap, prioritising and sequencing work across Engineering, Product Management and Design.
Act as the connecting point between Engineering, Product Management and Design leadership, translating needs and constraints between the three.
Manage competing stakeholder priorities and deliver to deadline under pressure, keeping the roadmap realistic and on track.
Design System Architecture
Architect the design system for clarity at scale: token architecture, component rules and documented decision criteria that keep the system consistent as it grows.
Own the propagation pipeline from Figma into Engineering's codebase, partnering with Engineering and front-end teams so tokens, components and patterns are consumable by code as well as by Designers.
Define and maintain conventions across Figma, including file structure, layer naming and handoff annotations, and keep them enforced as the team scales.
AI-Enabled Practice
Operate agents that monitor drift between Figma and production, flag issues and support design QA, reviewing outputs and triaging where human judgement is needed.
Build automation around the system, including plugins, scripts and Figma Make workflows, to remove repetitive work from Designers and Engineers alike.
Governance and Quality
Establish and maintain documentation and governance for design system components, including versioning, naming conventions, contribution guidelines and change management for both human and agent use.
Lead design system audits and accessibility reviews, ensuring components meet WCAG 2.2 AA by default.
Adoption and Enablement
Run regular design system office hours and hands-on support for Designers and Engineers across teams, driving effective adoption in addition to component documentation.
Define and track adoption KPIs that measure the design system's impact on delivery speed, consistency and quality.
Make the case for system investment to Product and Engineering leadership, building the stakeholder relationships that keep the system funded and prioritised.
Embed design system adoption into platform modernisation and journey-rebuild work, so new products default to system-based design from the outset.
About You
You will bring strong systems thinking, experience planning and managing a roadmap across multiple stakeholder groups, and the stakeholder skills to make the case for why the system matters.
Essential Experience and Skills
A track record of leading design system or platform design capability within a product organisation, evidenced by a portfolio of system architecture, tokens and documented governance.
Experience translating brand identity and visual language into a scalable design system, ensuring tokens and components stay true to the brand as it grows.
Working knowledge of HTML, CSS and at least one component-based front-end framework, enough to communicate fluently with Engineers and specify tokens that propagate cleanly.
Demonstrated experience building or operating automation around design tools such as Figma plugins, scripts or Figma Make.
Comfort writing structured prompts and iterating on rule sets that govern agent behaviour around the design system.
Strong systems thinking, with an understanding of the needs of humans and agents as consumers of the system.
A track record of stakeholder management, making the case for system investment with Product and Engineering leadership.
Proven experience supporting WCAG 2.2 AA and inclusive design principles within design systems.
Experience planning and managing a design system or platform roadmap, prioritising and sequencing work across Engineering, Product Management and Design.
Proven ability to work as the connecting point between these groups, managing competing priorities and delivering to deadline under pressure.
Personal Attributes
Systems thinker, comfortable holding architecture-level detail and the bigger picture at once.
Pragmatic and focused on adoption and real-world usage.
Confident making the case for system investment to senior stakeholders.
Comfortable managing competing stakeholder priorities and delivering to deadline under pressure.
Comfortable building capability from the ground up in a growing design function.
Collaborative, used to working closely with both Engineers and Designers to achieve system-wide goals.
Extra Benefits
Family-friendly support — Enhanced maternity pay, paternity leave, adoption leave and shared parental leave.
Supportive and generous company sick pay.
Funded dental — As a manager, you are eligible for a level of employer-funded dental insurance.*
Health assessment — As a manager, you are eligible for an employer-funded health assessment every two years.*
Benefits Account — You will have access to your personal benefits account on our ‘My Bundle+’ platform. There are more than 800 retail offers to help you save on groceries, days out, holidays and household bills, as well as employer-provided and voluntary benefits to suit your lifestyle.
Your Wellbeing — You and your family have 24/7 access to services and tools to help you get the most out of life. From physical and mental health to financial and social support and advice, it’s free and it’s for everyone.
Next Steps
To apply, please submit your CV alongside a portfolio that demonstrates your design system work. Your portfolio should evidence how you have applied design system practices to positively impact customer and business outcomes.
Shortlisted candidates will be invited to a face-to-face interview with the Design Director, comprising a pre-prepared design task and competency and capability questions. To help you prepare, we will provide your interview questions in advance.
We understand that candidates may not meet all the criteria for the role. If your experience is different but you have relevant skills, we’d love to hear from you. (Delete if essential criteria only.)
Royal Mail Group is committed to inclusion and representing the diverse communities we serve. We welcome applications from all individuals. As a proud Gold signatory to the Armed Forces Covenant, we especially encourage applications from the Armed Forces community, including cadet instructors and spouses or partners.
We are committed to ensuring an inclusive recruitment process. If you require adjustments during the hiring process, please discuss these with your recruiter when contacted.
We are Forces family friendly and a Gold signatory to the Armed Forces Covenant. We welcome applications from ex-Armed Forces personnel, reservists, veterans, cadet instructors and military spouses or partners.
For more information on Royal Mail Group and our values, visit internationaldistributionsservices.com.
Closing Date: 10 October 2026. Please note that this advert may close early if the appropriate number of applications has been reached.
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