Senior Technical Lead – Enterprise Design System

Vanguard•Malvern, PA

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

About the Team The design system is Vanguard’s comprehensive design ecosystem, which includes: A coded, reusable UI component library Design and content guidelines A cross‑platform design token system A design UI kit and supporting tooling for product teams The design system enables teams across the company to build accessible, inclusive, and consistent digital experiences. As a Senior Technical Lead, you will play a critical role in its modernization, expansion, and architectural evolution.

Requirements

Deep proficiency in modern web development (TypeScript, HTML, SCSS) and component‑driven architecture.
Significant experience building or maintaining enterprise‑scale design systems or component libraries.
Strong experience with modern UI frameworks (Lit preferred; React, Angular, Vue, Svelte, or Stencil acceptable).
Proven ability to lead architectural decisions, establish engineering standards, and drive modernization initiatives.
Experience with design tokens, Storybook, automated testing, CI/CD pipelines, and WCAG‑aligned accessibility practices.
Excellent communication skills with the ability to influence without authority and articulate complex technical concepts to diverse stakeholders.

Nice To Haves

Experience contributing to large‑scale or multi‑platform design systems.
Familiarity with modernization principles and reference architecture patterns.
Experience with DevOps, SRE practices, or automated quality pipelines.
Experience supporting design systems across web, mobile, and/or design‑tool ecosystems.

Responsibilities

Provide technical leadership to ensure the design system’s architecture is modern, scalable, accessible, and aligned with industry best practices.
Define and drive the future‑state technical vision, including component architecture, design tokens, accessibility standards, and platform‑aligned tooling.
Lead major contributions to the next evolution of the system, improving discoverability, reducing duplication, and strengthening consistency across component libraries.
Shape contribution and governance models that support distributed development and shared quality standards across teams.
Identify modernization opportunities and support the creation of reusable patterns, reference architectures, and frameworks used enterprise‑wide.
Guide and review complex engineering solutions, resolve technical blockers, and uphold high standards for code quality and documentation.
Partner closely with the mobile design‑system team to ensure alignment across web and mobile platforms.
Lead day‑to‑day technical execution, ensuring delivery of high‑quality, maintainable, and accessible components and tooling.
Collaborate with product and design partners to shape roadmaps and support broader modernization goals.
Mentor engineers, promote engineering excellence, and foster a learning‑focused and inclusive team culture.
Explore emerging technologies and help drive continuous improvements in accessibility, automation, developer experience, and engineering standards.