Design Systems Director

THE CHALLENGE

Eventbrite is a global self-service ticketing and experience technology platform connecting millions of attendees with event creators around the world. Our mission is to create and inspire meaningful connections by enabling creators to host events that bring people together. We're committed to fostering an innovative, inclusive culture that empowers our teams to make a lasting impact.

As Eventbrite expands, our design language must evolve cohesively across products, platforms, and experiences. Our goal is to ensure that our design system, Marmalade, consistently delivers seamless, brand-aligned experiences, enhancing usability and scalability across our ecosystem.

THE ROLE

Reporting to the VP of Design, the Director of Design Systems will lead the team behind Marmalade, Eventbrite’s design system. This role is pivotal in defining, growing, and optimizing the design system to support our vision of becoming a premier marketplace for quality experiences. The Director of Design Systems will be responsible for unifying product and brand experiences, fostering cross-functional collaboration across design and engineering, and establishing a strategic approach to scalable design language.

YOU WILL

Leadership & Development

• Manage and Mentor the Design Systems Team: Lead a multidisciplinary team of designers, guiding them to achieve high standards of design consistency and quality across all digital touchpoints.
• Drive Strategic Alignment: Collaborate with design, product, and engineering leaders to integrate Marmalade’s roadmap with Eventbrite’s broader product strategy, ensuring alignment with our brand identity.

Design System Strategy & Vision

• Develop and Refine Design Language: Establish principles and guidelines that define Eventbrite’s visual, motion, and interaction patterns, promoting a cohesive design language across diverse user experiences.
• Scale and Evolve Marmalade: Partner with design system team members to expand Marmalade, adapting components and guidelines to meet the changing needs of the business.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Partner with Key Stakeholders: Work closely with product designers, engineers, and brand teams to ensure seamless integration of brand values within product interfaces, supporting a unified user experience.
• Influence Product Roadmaps: Align short-term and long-term product initiatives with design system priorities, advocating for the value and necessity of a consistent, scalable design framework.

Creative and Technical Guidance

• Direct Creative Consistency: Oversee visual standards across typography, color, motion, and interaction elements, ensuring that all aspects of our product design reflect Eventbrite’s brand standards.
• Champion Innovation and Adaptability: Stay ahead of design and technology trends, introducing advancements that improve the adaptability and resilience of Marmalade across platforms.
• Deep Technical Expertise: Possess a strong understanding of how to build for engineering flexibility, ensuring design systems are scalable and compatible with the versatility and composability that engineering needs. Stay at the forefront of new tools and technologies, including prototyping technology.
• Multi-Platform Design Systems: Lead the development and growth of design systems that scale beyond standard practices, ensuring they are optimized for web, mobile, and emerging platforms. 

THE SKILLSET

Experience

• 8-10 years of experience managing design teams, particularly in building and scaling design systems for user-focused products.
• Strong portfolio showcasing design systems leadership, with examples of cohesive, high-quality work across digital products.

Skills

• Design System Expertise: Deep understanding of scalable design systems, with a track record of building and driving the adoption of  high visual quality, beautiful motion and thoughtful interaction design that unites the brand and the product across multiple platforms. 
• Cross-Disciplinary Knowledge: The ideal candidate for this role is comfortable being described as a design engineer and may have worked as a designer at times and an engineer at other times. Someone that truly understands both sides of a design system and can lead a team of designers, engineers and product folks outside of their team will thrive in this role.

Leadership

• Impactful Decision-Maker: Demonstrated ability to drive measurable outcomes through design, fostering cross-functional buy-in and alignment.
• Collaborative Mindset: Skilled at developing trusting relationships across teams and fostering a culture of openness and collaboration.
• Clear Communicator: Exceptional ability to convey complex ideas and system strategies, both visually and verbally, to various stakeholders.

Personal Attributes

• Proactive and Adaptable: Comfortable navigating ambiguity and leading large-scale design initiatives across a remote, distributed organization

Customer-Centric Approach: Dedicated to creating solutions that elevate the user experience while balancing brand and product needs.