Senior Designer - Web & Mobile Apps, Governance

Job Description

Work Arrangement

• This role is categorized as remote or hybrid to Warren, MI, Austin, TX or Mountain View, CA. Remote candidates will be considered.

• If you live within 50 miles of a GM hub location, you are expected to report to the office three times per week, or other frequency dictated by the business.

• If you live outside a 50 mile radius of these locations, please still apply.

The Role

As a Senior Designer on the Human Interface Design (HID team), governing the Web & Mobile Apps team. In this role, you will be a steward the integrity, scalability, and long-term health of GM’s web and app design system. This is a senior individual contributor role with broad organizational influence. You will operate at the intersection of design systems, governance, and cross-functional alignment, ensuring that teams across GM build with coherence, quality, and intent.

This role requires both deep systems knowledge and the confidence to navigate high-stakes conversations with senior Marketing, Product, Engineering and Agency partners when work diverges from established standards. You are not a production designer. You are a highly experienced and technically skilled agent of design quality, active at the organizational level with 5+ years of hands-on experience designing for software, web, and mobile products.

You are a Figma expert and bring strong systems thinking and a passion for scalable, well-documented design processes. Your craft is rooted in clarity, structure, and functionality—not just aesthetics—and you’re comfortable collaborating closely with engineers to ensure high-fidelity implementation.

What You’ll Do

• Own and evolve core elements of GM’s web and app design system, including patterns, guidelines, and usage principles.

• Define clear system boundaries and guardrails, including where flexibility is allowed and where it is not.

• Partner with Marketing, Product, Engineering, and external agencies to ensure proper adoption and use of the design system.

• Lead design reviews focused on system alignment, quality, and long-term scalability rather than surface-level execution.

• Intervene when teams or agencies go off-system, guiding course correction through principled, credible design rationale.

• Translate system intent into clear guidance, documentation, and decision frameworks that teams can use.

• Act as a senior design representative in complex, sometimes adversarial conversations where brand, speed, or local needs conflict with system integrity.

• Champion accessibility, inclusivity, and consistency as non-negotiable system qualities.

• Present system strategy, decisions, and tradeoffs to senior leadership and executive stakeholders.

Your Skills & Abilities (Required Qualifications)

• Bachelor’s degree in Design, Human Computer Interaction, Visual Communications, or related field, or equivalent professional experience.

• 5+ years of professional experience in product design, systems design, or design systems roles.

• Demonstrated experience owning or significantly contributing to large-scale design systems across multiple products, brands, or platforms.

• Strong portfolio showing system-level thinking, decision-making frameworks, and long-term impact rather than only artifact production.

• Proven ability to influence without direct authority and to hold firm on standards under pressure.

• Exceptional communication and storytelling skills, including experience presenting to senior leaders and navigating contentious discussions.

• Deep expertise in modern design tools and systems workflows, including Figma-based system management.

What Will Give You a Competitive Edge (Preferred Qualifications)

• 7+ years of professional experience in product design, systems design, or design systems roles.

• Experience working with global brands, complex brand architectures, or federated organizations.

• Prior experience engaging with Marketing organizations and external agencies in governance or review contexts.

• Background in automotive, enterprise platforms, or large-scale digital ecosystems.

• Demonstrated success balancing standardization with brand expression and local market needs.

• Experience defining governance models, review processes, or…