Lead Product Designer

Description

Business Area:

Product Mgmt.

Seniority Level:

Mid-Senior level

At Cloudera, we empower people to transform complex data into clear and actionable insights. With as much data under management as the hyperscalers, we're the preferred data partner for the top companies in almost every industry. Powered by the relentless innovation of the open source community, Cloudera advances digital transformation for the world’s largest enterprises.

As a designer at Cloudera your main focus is to let your curiosity drive you. You will use your passion and knowledge to create precision-crafted designs that bring simplicity and innovation to our products and services. The Cloudera Platform helps customers manage the lifecycle of their data, from the edge to AI. Our hybrid data platform delivers unprecedented value to our customers and is key to our overall strategy and success. We need an experienced and talented designer to spearhead the evolution of our design system across a suite of enterprise data platform tools used by some of the world’s most data-driven organizations.

You’ll lead efforts to create and maintain a scalable, accessible, and robust design system that empowers our design and engineering teams to build consistent, intuitive, and high-performing user interfaces. This is a high-impact role where you’ll define system architecture, champion design standards, and collaborate with cross-functional partners to ensure design consistency across complex, data-heavy user interfaces. You will work closely with the entire design team to improve our process, our design system implementation, and our design culture. The culture of the Cloudera Design team is human first, we actively seek to grow each member’s career through outside education and candid, compassionate feedback from other experienced designers.

In this position you will…

Own the end-to-end strategy and execution of our design system, ensuring it scales to support multiple enterprise-grade applications and user personas.

Partner with product designers, engineers, and product managers to create a shared language through reusable UI components and documentation and uphold implementation quality.

Build and maintain a component library in Figma, along with production-ready components in frameworks such as React, with a focus on performance and flexibility.

Design patterns that accommodate complex user workflows, large-scale data visualization, customization, and role-based UX.

Pioneer the integration and governance of our design system with AI tools (Figma Make, Claude, Cursor), ensuring AI-generated UI accelerates development while strictly adhering to system integrity and design tokens.

Architect LLM-optimized documentation and create structured system prompts (e.g., .cursorrules) that empower cross-functional teams to leverage AI assistants effectively and on-brand.

Ensure the system meets strict enterprise standards, including accessibility (WCAG 2.1+, ARIA), security needs, internationalization (I18N), and localization (L10N).

Conduct regular audits to identify inconsistencies and introduce strategies to measure adoption and usage.

Act as a design systems evangelist, driving education and alignment through documentation, onboarding, and cross-functional communication.

Provide mentorship and guidance to other members of the design team.

Requirements

• 6–8 years of experience in UX/UI design or front-end development, with 2+ years owning or leading a design system in a B2B SaaS or enterprise software environment.
• Demonstrated experience not just using, but actively integrating tools like Figma Make, Claude, and Cursor into scalable design and development workflows.
• Experience designing for complex interfaces such as dashboards, analytics tools, data modeling interfaces, or workflow automation platforms.
• Ability to balance system standardization with flexibility needed for varied product contexts and evolving business needs.
• Deep understanding of responsive design, accessibility (WCAG 2.1+, ARIA), internationalization/localization (I18N/L10N), design tokens, and theming strategies.
• Self-starter and highly collaborative communicator, experienced in managing shifting priorities and navigating ambiguity in a fast-paced, high-growth environment while advocating for system-oriented design.
• Mastery of user-centered design processes, design principles (grid, typography, color), and a rigorous attention to detail, particularly as applied to enterprise software.
• Understanding of how to structure design system documentation, design tokens, and component APIs to be easily readable and utilized by Generative AI coding assistants.
• Bachelor's degree or equivalent in a relevant field required.
• Excellent verbal and written English communication skills are required.
• You might also have…
• Familiarity with data visualization frameworks (e.g., D3.js, Recharts, Vega-Lite) or building charting libraries.
• Experience with multi-product platforms, micro frontends, or modular monorepo structures.
• Experience working with hybrid and on-prem data platforms, or other similar technologies.
• Prior experience in a highly regulated or security-sensitive industry (e.g., finance, healthcare, or government).
• Experience writing custom scripts, plugins, or system prompts that bridge the gap between design tools (Figma) and AI coding assistants.
• Contributions to open-source design systems or enterprise UI kits.
• If you are ready to have a game changing impact, this is the job for you. If this position has piqued your interest and you have what we described - we invite you to apply! Your adventure in enterprise data awaits.
• What you can expect from us:
• Generous PTO Policy
• Support work life balance with Unplugged Days
• Flexible WFH Policy
• Mental & Physical Wellness programs
• Phone and Internet Reimbursement program
• Access to Continued Career Development
• Comprehensive Benefits and Competitive Packages
• Paid Volunteer Time
• Employee Resource Groups