Staff Product Designer, Design Systems

MongoDB’s mission is to empower innovators to create, transform, and disrupt industries by unleashing the power of software and data. We enable organizations of all sizes to easily build, scale, and run modern applications by helping them modernize legacy workloads, embrace innovation, and unleash AI. Our industry-leading developer data platform, MongoDB Atlas, is the only globally distributed, multi-cloud database and is available in more than 115 regions across AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure. Atlas allows customers to build and run applications anywhere—on premises, or across cloud providers. With offices worldwide and over 175,000 new developers signing up to use MongoDB every month, it’s no wonder that leading organizations, like Samsung and Toyota, trust MongoDB to build next-generation, AI-powered applications.

The LeafyGreen Design System team plays a critical role in shaping the design infrastructure that enables MongoDB teams to deliver a cohesive user experience across products. At the intersection of design, engineering, and accessibility, the LeafyGreen team builds scalable tools, reusable interaction patterns, guidance, and frameworks that empower teams to create exceptional and accessible user experiences at global scale. As MongoDB’s products evolve, the team is expanding its focus beyond foundational design system components to more tailored patterns and templates that support product-specific workflows and real-world usage.

With a shared curiosity for emerging technologies, including AI, and a collaborative approach to problem solving, the LeafyGreen Design System team thrives on bringing clarity to complexity while elevating both design quality and product outcomes. If you’re passionate about systems-driven design and shaping intelligent, adaptive interfaces at scale, we’d love to have you on this journey.

We are looking to speak to candidates who are based in New York City for our hybrid working model.

About you:

You’re a systems-oriented product designer with deep interaction design expertise and a passion for enabling great user experiences at scale. You think beyond individual screens to the broader patterns, principles, workflows, and frameworks that help teams build cohesive, accessible products.

You’re energized by navigating complexity and ambiguity, translating it into actionable solutions that balance strategic vision with real-world adaptability. You excel at driving clarity across teams with diverse needs and priorities, building strong relationships with designers, engineers, and product managers to align on shared solutions.

You’re curious about emerging technologies, especially AI, and excited by the opportunity to shape how intelligent, adaptive interfaces are reflected in design systems. Above all, you care about delivering tools, patterns, and guidance that elevate the quality of MongoDB’s products while helping others do their best work.

In this role, you will be responsible for:

Design System Development

• Driving the evolution of our design system from atomic components to scalable interaction patterns and reusable templates tailored to product-specific workflows
• Collaborating with product teams to understand real-world usage and iterating based on feedback
• Exploring and scaling solutions for predictive, adaptive, or AI-assisted interaction patterns that integrate seamlessly with existing product experiences

Team Alignment and Adoption

• Facilitating workshops and co-creation sessions to drive systems-thinking and shared understanding across teams
• Leading cross-functional efforts to improve system adoption, documentation, and alignment across product areas
• Advocating for consistency, accessibility, and usability across the product portfolio while balancing flexibility for tailored workflows

Leadership and Influence

• Shaping long-term design system strategy in close partnership with design, product, and engineering leadership, prioritizing scalable solutions that balance the evolving needs of product teams with consistency, accessibility, and usability across MongoDB’s portfolio
• Communicating design system rationale and decisions through compelling narratives, clear documentation, and actionable examples
• Mentoring other designers and elevating systems-thinking across MongoDB’s product design organization

Qualifications:

• 8+ years of experience in product design, with deep expertise in interaction design and systems-level thinking
• A strong portfolio that demonstrates end-to-end product thinking and interaction design across platforms, ideally within or in collaboration with design systems
• Experience contributing to, or leading design systems work, with a strong understanding of component libraries, UX patterns, and the evolution of systems beyond base UI components
• Experience designing for complex SaaS applications, especially those involving technical or developer-focused tooling
• Proven ability to distill team and user feedback into actionable improvements to patterns, guidance, and documentation
• Ability to collaborate effectively with engineering and design partners to drive scalable, accessible, and high-quality system implementation
• Comfort partnering on research that combines qualitative insights and quantitative analytics to shape system evolution
• Strong systems design skills and iterative mindset, focusing on continuous improvement based on feedback and adoption metrics
• Strong communicator, able to clearly articulate design system impact, advocate for adoption, and align cross-functionally

Hard skills:

• Strong interaction design background with systems-thinking expertise
• Experience scaling design systems from atomic components to reusable interaction patterns and templates
• Comfortable running or partnering on research to inform system development
• Proficiency in Figma, including management of shared libraries and scalable UX guidance  

Soft skills:

• Thrives in ambiguity, translating complexity into scalable, actionable solutions
• Builds trust across teams, driving alignment and advocacy for design systems adoption
• Mentors peers and partners to foster systems literacy and elevate design quality across the organization
• Balances consistency with real-world flexibility, adapting systems to support diverse product needs  

Nice to have:

• Familiarity with behavioral design principles and how reusable patterns can support specific user workflows
• Experience contributing to adoption strategies, system governance frameworks, and design evangelism
• Experience scaling systems across multiple products or business units
• Exposure to frontend frameworks (e.g., React) and how design systems translate into code
• Experience leveraging AI-powered tools to enhance productivity in design workflows, for example, using generative AI for design documentation, prototyping adaptive interfaces, or automating repetitive tasks
• Interest in exploring how AI-driven features can inform the evolution of reusable patterns and scalable interaction frameworks within a design system

To drive the personal growth and business impact of our employees, we’re committed to developing a supportive and enriching culture for everyone. From employee affinity groups, to fertility assistance and a generous parental leave policy, we value our employees’ wellbeing and want to support them along every step of their professional and personal journeys. Learn more about what it’s like to work at MongoDB, and help us make an impact on the world!

MongoDB is committed to providing any necessary accommodations for individuals with disabilities within our application and interview process. To request an accommodation due to a disability, please inform your recruiter.

MongoDB, Inc. provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type and makes all hiring decisions without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.

Req ID: 2263189441

MongoDB’s base salary range for this role is posted below. Compensation at the time of offer is unique to each candidate and based on a variety of factors such as skill set, experience, qualifications, and work location. Salary is one part of MongoDB’s total compensation and benefits package. Other benefits for eligible employees may include: equity, participation in the employee stock purchase program, flexible paid time off, 20 weeks fully-paid gender-neutral parental leave, fertility and adoption assistance, 401(k) plan, mental health counseling, access to transgender-inclusive health insurance coverage, and health benefits offerings. Please note, the base salary range listed below and the benefits in this paragraph are only applicable to U.S.-based candidates.