Staff Product Designer, Patterns

Responsibilities

• Drive System Quality: Lead the stewardship, evolution, and adoption of Pinterest's core design patterns, component libraries, and gestalt subsystems, ensuring cohesive, delightful, and accessible user experiences at scale.
• Partner Horizontally: Act as a strategic advisor and hands-on partner to product, engineering, and design teams across Personalization and core surfaces, empowering them to leverage best-in-class patterns and ship with confidence.
• Advance Systemic Thinking: Apply methodical, systematic approaches to pattern creation, balancing product usability, craft, accessibility, and business needs with input from a wide range of stakeholders.
• Prototype & Technologize: Rapidly visualize, prototype, and validate new ideas; translate abstract solutions into practical, scalable patterns using Figma, code, AI, or whatever is needed to inspire clarity and adoption.
• Uphold and Elevate Craft: Conduct quality audits, review flows and handoffs, and directly contribute hands-on design when needed, always advocating for the highest standards in interface design and user experience.
• Mentor & Scale Impact: Inspire and guide other designers in craft, systemic thinking, and best practices through critique, guidance, and sharing expertise across teams.
• Champion Accessibility & Inclusion: Ensure design systems support diverse user needs and raise the bar on inclusion and accessibility from the ground up.
• Communicate & Influence: Clearly articulate design thinking, rationale, and vision, presenting work to teams, leaders, and executives, and rallying consensus for design system initiatives.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in design, a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• 8+ years of experience in product design, with significant time spent driving or evolving design systems or pattern libraries.
• Portfolio demonstrating polished interface design, systemic thinking, component-based UIs, and tangible influence across large organizations.
• Deep expertise in designing and evolving comprehensive Design Systems and component libraries.
• Proficiency in Figma for interface design, prototyping, and design system management.
• Strong understanding of accessibility standards and best practices in UI/UX design.
• Proven ability to partner effectively with product management and engineering teams.
• Excellent communication and presentation skills, with the ability to influence stakeholders at all levels.
• Demonstrated commitment to inclusion and crafting systems that serve diverse audiences.
• Experience leading platform-wide or multi-product design system initiatives.

Preferred Qualifications

• Design technologist mindset: Comfortable experimenting with Figma prototypes, AI, and front-end code (e.g., HTML, CSS, JavaScript) to inform design decisions and streamline workflows.
• Familiarity with personalization strategies and their application in consumer apps.
• Experience working in rapid scale environments or with large consumer-facing platforms.
• Contributions to public design systems, open-source libraries, or industry talks/writing.
• Curiosity and opinionated perspective on technical feasibility, accessibility, and workflow optimization through systems and tools.

Benefits

• Equity grants, reflecting a significant stake in the company's success.
• Comprehensive health, dental, and vision insurance plans.
• Generous paid time off (PTO), including vacation, sick leave, and holidays.
• Parental leave policies to support new parents.
• Retirement savings plans (e.g., 401(k)) with potential company match.
• Professional development opportunities, including training, conferences, and tuition reimbursement.
• Access to Pinterest's unique employee programs and perks.

About the Company

Pinterest operates in a highly competitive digital landscape, focusing on visual discovery and inspiration. This context means that design quality, user experience, and platform scalability are paramount to success. The company is a large, publicly traded technology company with a history as a visual discovery engine, fostering a culture that values aesthetics, usability, and creative expression.