Staff Product Designer, Design Systems

About Ethos

Ethos is a leading life insurance technology company on a mission to protect families by democratizing access to life insurance and empowering agents at scale. With its robust three-sided technology platform Ethos is transforming the life insurance experience for consumers agents and carriers alike. Ethos offers instant accessible products and a seamless online process that requires no medical exams and just a few health questions; it eliminates traditional barriers making it easier than ever for everyone to protect their families. Ethos is redefining how life insurance is bought sold and underwritten.

About the role

Were looking for Ethos first Staff Product Designer Design Systems to build and evolve the design system that powers our customer and internal experiences.

This is a true 01 opportunity. Ethos is not yet design-system mature and thats exactly why this role matters: youll help bring structure to how we design and build UI without slowing down product teams or over-engineering processes. Youll partner closely with Product Design Engineering Brand/Creative and Content Design to create a system that helps teams move faster while improving consistency accessibility quality and trust.

This role is a blend of strategy and hands-on execution. Youll define what the system is build it in Figma help translate it into production-ready components and tokens with engineering and set the operating model that keeps it healthy as Ethos scales into its next chapter.

Duties and Responsibilities:

Strategy & Foundations

• Establish the vision principles and roadmap for Ethos design system balancing long-term scalability with near-term product needs.
• Audit the current system product UI and identify the highest-leverage opportunities to standardize patterns and reduce inconsistency.
• Define a scalable token strategy (color typography spacing elevation motion etc.) and a clear approach to theming and brand expression across products.

System Design & Craft

• Design build and maintain Figma libraries (components styles/variables templates and patterns) that product teams can confidently use.
• Create high-quality component specifications with clear interaction behavior states responsive guidance and accessibility considerations (focus keyboard contrast error handling etc.).
• Ensure the system supports narrative conversion-driven experiences (e.g. discovery flows applications underwriting moments onboarding policy management lifecycle touchpoints).

Engineering Partnership

• Partner with Design System / Front-End engineers to translate the system into reusable code components and tokens (and help define component APIs that work for product teams).
• Align on workflows that keep design and code in sync (component lifecycle versioning release notes deprecations).
• Drive pragmatic adoption: start where it matters most ship iteratively and build credibility through visible product impact.

Governance Adoption & Enablement

• Build documentation that is actually used: guidelines do/dont examples usage rationale and decision records.
• Coach and enable partner teams (Product Design Engineering PM) on how to use the system effectively and when to extend it.
• Create a lightweight contribution process that enables product designers and engineers to propose review and add to the system.

Measurement & Iteration

• • Define what success looks like and track meaningful signals (adoption UI consistency reduced design/development time accessibility improvements fewer regressions).
  • Partner with Research and Data teams where useful to connect system changes to outcomes (quality user confidence conversion efficiency).

Qualifications and Skills:

• Strong product design foundation with excellent visual and interaction craft you care deeply about details and can scale that quality through systems.
• Hands-on experience building and maintaining design systems in Figma including component architecture documentation and scalable patterns.
• Strong working fluency with modern front-end concepts (tokens components states responsive behavior). You dont need to be an engineer but you can collaborate closely with engineering and understand tradeoffs.
• Experience setting accessibility standards and shipping accessible components (WCAG-informed practices inclusive design thinking).
• Ability to thrive in ambiguity and build structure where it doesnt yet exist youre pragmatic opinionated and iterative.
• Clear communicator who can align diverse stakeholders and influence without relying on formal authority.
• A portfolio that demonstrates end-to-end design system thinking and real-world impact (adoption quality speed consistency).

Nice to Have:

• Experience building design tokens pipelines and/or working with tooling like Storybook or similar component documentation environments.
• Experience with video motion illustration/iconography tone.

#LI-Hybrid
#LI-NG1

Dont meet every single requirement If youre excited about this role but your past experience doesnt align perfectly with every qualification in the job description we encourage you to apply anyway. At Ethos we are dedicated to building a diverse inclusive and authentic workplace.

We are an equal opportunity employer.. We do not discriminate on the basis of race religion color national origin gender sexual orientation age marital status veteran status or disability status. Pursuant to the SF Fair Chance Ordinance we will consider employment for qualified applicants with arrests and conviction records.

To learn more about what information we collect and how it may be used please refer to ourCalifornia CandidatePrivacy Notice.

Recruitment Notice: Please be aware of recruitment scams. All legitimate communication from our team will only come from email addresses ending in @ or @.
We will never ask for payment banking details or sensitive personal information during the hiring process. If you are contacted by someone claiming to represent us from a different email address please treat it as fraudulent.