Principal Product Designer, Design Systems

The Company You’ll Join

Carta develops purpose-built software that transforms traditional accounting into a powerful growth engine. Carta’s world-class fund administration platform supports nearly 7,000 funds and SPVs, and represents nearly $130B in assets under management in venture capital and private equity. Trusted by more than 40,000 companies, Carta also helps private businesses in over 160 countries manage their cap tables, valuations, taxes, equity programs, compensation, and more. Together, Carta is setting a new standard as the end-to-end platform for private markets. Our best-in-class solution for fund management seamlessly integrates investor and portfolio company insights via a suite of tools designed ground-up to support the strategic impact of the fund CFO.

The Problems You’ll Solve

Carta is seeking a Principal Product Designer to help lead the evolution of our design systems and shape the future of Carta’s digital experiences. This is a high-impact individual contributor role where you’ll champion design craft, strategy, and collaboration across R&D to elevate our product offerings. As the Principal Product Designer for Design Systems, you will play a pivotal role in evolving and scaling Carta’s design system to deliver consistent, high-quality digital product experiences across our ecosystem. You’ll partner closely with engineering, product, and design peers to define a shared vision and ensure our design system meets the needs of both internal teams and external customers.

Our ideal candidate is a systems thinker with a passion for driving design excellence. You’re adept at translating complex challenges into simple, scalable solutions, and you possess a natural curiosity for pushing the boundaries of design systems. You will work on projects that span across our web platform, aligning cross-functional stakeholders, and advocating for the critical role of design systems in delivering cohesive, useful, and beautiful user experiences.

Additionally You Will

• Help lead and execute the design systems strategy: Evolve and execute the vision and craft of Carta’s design system (ink), ensuring it supports the delivery of high-quality products and empowers teams across the organization.
• Drive visual and product design excellence: Advocate for the nerdiness of visual design craft while aligning it with business goals. Promote consistent, best-in-class design solutions across all product areas. Deep expertise in UI/UX craft; passion for visual design, interaction details, typography, accessibility, and pixel perfect deliverables.
• Collaborate cross-functionally: Partner with engineering, product management, and designers to ensure the design system integrates seamlessly into our product development process.
• Deliver impactful solutions: Work hands-on to design and deliver detailed, scalable components and patterns. Ensure quality through collaboration with engineering to bring robust solutions to life.
• Shape user experiences: Create and refine design flows, prototypes, and interactions that enhance usability and consistency across products. Leverage both qualitative and quantitative insights to guide design decisions.
• Influence design culture: Mentor other designers, and elevate the UI/UX design culture within the organization. Inspire teams with our vision for the future of Carta’s Design System.
• Champion system adoption: Align key stakeholders on the value of design systems, drive the adoption of tools and processes, and measure the impact of the system on product quality and efficiency.

The Team You’ll Work With

You’ll be joining the ‘Ink Team’. Ink is Carta’s centralized Design System which enables Designers, Developers and Product partners to create high-quality experiences at scale. We are a team of Designers, Engineers, and Design Technologists focused on the evolution and delivery of the tools, components, patterns, documentation, and guidance which power Product Design and Frontend Engineering at Carta.

About You

The ideal candidate is passionate about building intuitive system-focused solutions for complex problems that provide direct value to users. They enjoy driving Design Systems strategy, ideation, execution, problem solving, and product delivery. If that sounds like you, we would love to talk to you. In our search, we’re prioritizing:

• 10+ years of product design experience, with at least 5 years focused on design systems.
• A strong portfolio of case studies that demonstrate a deep understanding of design systems and successful track record of execution across multiple products and platforms.
• A portfolio showcasing complex, impactful design solutions and a deep understanding of UI/UX design principles.
• Strong communication skills and the ability to articulate and advocate for design decisions to functional partners and leadership.
• Experience influencing and executing cross-functional teams.
• Technically proficient in building and scaling systems across platforms; from figma to code.
• Familiarity with latest developments in design systems and tools; figma, storybook, github etc.
• Ability to work in a dynamic environment — balancing rigor and scrappiness.
• High comfort level with ambiguity; openness to critique from other disciplines and curiosity to learn from a spectrum of perspectives.
• Proven experience in developing, scaling, and maintaining best-in-class enterprise design systems in collaboration with engineering and product teams.
• A passion for elevating design culture and mentoring designers to grow their craft.
• Nice-to-have: experience with finance or either the venture capital or private equity space.

Salary

We are hiring for multiple levels and locations, so final offers may vary from the amounts listed based on geography, experience and expertise, and other factors.

Benefits

Carta’s compensation package includes a market competitive salary, equity for all full time roles, exceptional benefits, and, for applicable roles, commissions plans. Our minimum cash compensation range for this role is:

• $197,000 - $247,000 in (Seattle, WA)
• $210,000 - $260,000 in (San Francisco, CA; Santa Clara, CA; New York, NY)

Final offers may vary from the amount listed based on geography, candidate experience and expertise, and other factors.

We are an equal opportunity employer and are committed to providing a positive interview experience for every candidate. If accommodations due to a disability or medical condition are needed, please connect with the talent partner via email.

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