Careem

Senior Product Designer (Design Systems)

Dubai, United Arab EmiratesPosted 73d ago

Senior

About the role

<div class="content-intro"><p><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Careem is building the Everything App for the greater Middle East — making it easy to move around, order food and groceries, manage payments, and more. Our purpose is simple: to simplify and improve people’s lives and build an awesome organisation that inspires.</span><br><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Since 2012, Careem has enabled earnings for over 2.5 million Captains, simplified the lives of more than 70 million customers, and built a platform where the region’s best talent and entrepreneurs thrive. We operate in 70+ cities across 10 countries, from Morocco to Pakistan.</span></p>

<p><span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><strong data-stringify-type="bold"><em data-stringify-type="italic">We’re now entering our next chapter — one powered by AI. We’re looking for AI talent: curious problem-solvers who know how to apply AI to build tools, automate workflows, and create real impact. Whether it’s streamlining operations, enhancing customer experience, or reimagining internal systems — we want people who can make Careem work smarter and move faster.</em></strong></span></p></div><p><strong>About The Role: <br></strong><br>Careem’s design system underpins every product experience across the super app, including rides, food, groceries, payments and beyond. We’re looking for a Design System Lead to own its evolution through its next chapter: one where the system serves not only designers and engineers, but AI agents that consume, generate and assemble design.This is a hands-on senior IC role for someone who is both a rigorous systems designer and a capable AI tool-builder. You’ll govern the token architecture, component library and documentation that keep a multi-vertical platform coherent, and you’ll use AI to make the system faster to maintain, easier to adopt and smarter to build with. </p>

<p>Own the Design System</p>

<ul>

<li>Own the lifecycle of Design System’s tokens, components, and patterns: from inception through shipping, iteration, and deprecation.</li>

<li>Define and enforce standards for color, type, spacing, and interaction across platforms (iOS, Android, web) and locales, including RTL/Arabic.</li>

<li>Resolve ambiguity regarding organizational ownership and responsibilities by maintaining a clear, intentional token architecture.</li>

<li>Establish and maintain comprehensive documentation, specifically addressing identified needs for detailing appropriate guidance to ensure cross-component consistency.</li>

<li>Champion accessibility (WCAG) as a system-level guarantee and manage the backlog with product and engineering partners.</li>

</ul>

<p>Make the System AI-native</p>

<ul>

<li>Structure tokens and components so agentic design-to-code and prompt-to-design workflows produce on-system output.</li>

<li>Build and maintain Code Connect mappings, MCP integrations, and structured component metadata.</li>

<li>Implement AI-assisted audits and linting to catch off-system usage and token misuse before they ship.</li>

<li>Use AI to keep documentation verified and versioned alongside the components it describes.</li>

<li>Prototype Figma plugins and agent workflows to remove repetitive tasks for the wider design team.</li>

</ul>

<p>Drive Adoption and Enablement</p>

<ul>

<li> Articulate the system’s value in efficiency and quality to stakeholders ranging from ICs to executives.</li>

<li>Facilitate design system guilds and critiques, and synthesize cross-vertical feedback into prioritized improvements.</li>

<li>Raise the organization's AI proficiency through workshops and training material.</li>

</ul>

<p>Partner and Influence</p>

<ul>

<li> Work closely with engineering to translate design patterns into deployable components, ensuring technical feasibility.</li>

<li>Apply judgment to manage component bloat; for example, maintaining separate architectures (like Quick cards) when merging variants creates excessive technical complexity.</li>

<li>Collaborate with stakeholders to align on design system goals and product strategy.</li>

</ul>

<ul>

<li>5+ years experience in product design, with at least 3 years dedicated to design systems at scale (ideally, multi-brand or super-app environments).</li>

<li>Advanced knowledge of variables, token architecture, component APIs, library management, and branching.</li>

<li>Demonstrated experience building real workflows with LLMs and agentic tools (e.g., Figma Plugin API, MCP-based integrations, or prompt design).</li>

<li>Ability to prototype in JavaScript/TypeScript, JSON, and manage design token pipelines.</li>

<li>Ability to distinguish semantic intent from value coincidence and manage complexity through unification.</li>

<li>Excellent English writing and presentation skills.</li>

</ul>

<h4>Bonus Points</h4>

<ul>

<li>Experience with RTL/Arabic-first products or the Middle East market.</li>

<li>Experience with production design-to-code pipelines (Code Connect, token transformation).</li>

<li>Active participation in the AI × design community (open-source contributions, speaking, or writing).</li>

</ul>

<p><strong>What we’ll provide you</strong></p>

<p>We offer colleagues the opportunity to drive impact in the region while they learn and grow. As a full time Careem colleague, you will be able to:</p>

<ul>

<li>Work and learn from great minds by joining a community of inspiring colleagues.</li>

<li>Put your passion to work in a purposeful organisation dedicated to creating impact in a region with a lot of untapped potential.</li>

<li>Explore new opportunities to learn and grow every day.</li>

<li>Work remotely from any country in the world for 30 days a year with unlimited vacation days per year.</li>

<li>Access to healthcare benefits and fitness reimbursements for health activities including gym, health club, and training classes.</li>

</ul>