Senior Product Designer & Front End Engineer

Senior Product Designer & Front End Engineer

Temporary Professional Santa Monica, CA, US

Salary Range: $90,000.00 To $ Annually

We are a global community that is driven by the creative spirit of Los Angeles. Through an inspiring mix of music, news, and culture, we bring joy and connection – online, in-person and on the radio. Always excellent, accessible, and often unexpected, we are a constant source of fuel for the imagination, education and good vibes. At least, that is what our members tell us.

As NPR’s flagship member station in Southern California for more than 30 years and a community service of Santa Monica College, KCRW is the next generation of public media.

Our digital products are central to how audiences discover stories, music, culture, and community. We’re investing in modernizing and evolving our digital ecosystem and are looking for a collaborative, creative, and technically strong design/engineering partner to help shape the next generation of KCRW’s digital experiences.

KCRW is seeking a Senior Product Designer & Front End Engineer to lead the design and development of engaging, accessible, and scalable digital experiences across our web, mobile and content platforms.

This hybrid role combines UI/UX design, design systems, prototyping, and modern front-end engineering. You’ll partner closely with product, engineering, marketing, content, and audience teams to create elegant user experiences while also implementing performant, maintainable front-end applications.

Experience working across CMS-driven ecosystems, APIs, and customer engagement platforms is highly valued. Familiarity with middleware and integration workflows connecting systems such as Contentful, Salesforce, Hub Spot, Zendesk, analytics platforms, and audience data tools is a strong plus.

Success in this role will be defined by launching and supporting key enhancements to KCRW's digital platforms, improving usability and accessibility across web experiences, contributing to increased audience engagement and retention, and building reusable design and front‑end systems that improve development efficiency.

Employment is expected to continue for approximately twelve months and may be extended, modified, or concluded based on organizational needs and project priorities.

The role reports to the Director of Project Management.

• Product Design & UX
• Design intuitive, accessible, and visually compelling digital experiences across web and mobile platforms.
• Create wireframes, high‑fidelity UI designs, interactive prototypes, user flows, and design documentation in Figma.
• Help evolve KCRW’s digital design system and reusable component library.
• Translate audience insights, analytics, and stakeholder needs into thoughtful product experiences.
• Champion accessibility, usability, responsive design, and audience‑centered thinking.
• Conduct UX research, usability testing, and iterative design improvements.
• Work closely with the Project Manager to translate the needs of editorial, marketing, membership, events, and engineering stakeholders into effective digital experiences.
• Front End Engineering
• Build and maintain modern web applications using React, Next.js, Type Script, and component‑based architecture.
• Develop performant, scalable, and maintainable front-end systems and reusable UI components.
• Integrate front-end applications with APIs, headless CMS platforms, and third‑party services.
• Collaborate with backend developers and platform teams on architecture and implementation.
• Contribute to CI/CD workflows, testing strategies, and front-end standards.
• Platform & Integration Work
• Work within Contentful and other headless CMS environments to power dynamic digital experiences.
• Support integrations with systems such as Salesforce, Hub Spot, Zendesk, analytics tools, and audience engagement platforms.
• Collaborate on middleware and API integration workflows between internal and external systems.
• Help improve personalization, content delivery, marketing automation, and audience engagement experiences.
• Help establish best practices across design, accessibility, performance, and front-end architecture.
• Stay…