Senior Design Systems Specialist

About the Team:

Grindr is an AI-native platform powering how millions of gay people connect globally. With 15M+ monthly users, 130B+ annual messages, and a team of fewer than 200, we move fast, stay lean, and tackle technical problems at a scale few companies ever see.

The Design team at Grindr operates with a small footprint and an outsized mandate - owning the visual and interaction language of a product used by millions of people daily. This role sits at the foundation of how the team scales its craft: building and maintaining the design system that powers Grindr's core app and, over time, the broader product surface. There is no sprawling design systems org here, no committee sign-off process, and no inherited system too entrenched to improve. What exists is a real ownership opportunity - the kind where the decisions you make show up in the product within weeks, not quarters.

We have a solid foundational design system, and this is a big opportunity to improve quality and visual design, innovate, modernize, and work with AI to accelerate our team.

At Grindr, we operate in Grindr Mode. Moderately hardcore day to day, truly hardcore when it counts. It's about doing great work without burning out. Outcomes over outputs. Smart, driven people who raise your bar, with room to live full lives.

This is a hybrid role based in our San Francisco office and will require you to be in person Tuesdays and Thursdays.

About the Job:

• Own the development, documentation, and ongoing refinement of Grindr's core design system - components, tokens, patterns, and the guidelines that govern how they are used
• Partner directly with product designers and engineers to ensure the system is adopted consistently and evolves to meet real product needs
• Identify and resolve design inconsistencies across the core app, driving toward a more coherent and efficient product experience
• Contribute strong visual design craft to the system - not just structural rigor, but considered, polished execution that raises the quality bar for the whole product
• Operate with a high degree of autonomy in a lean environment - prioritize effectively, make defensible decisions without heavy process, and move fast without creating debt
• Lead the charge on integrating our design system with AI tools

Role Requirements:

• 5+ years of product or visual design experience, with at least 2-3 years of focused design systems ownership - building or significantly evolving a system, not just contributing to one
• Demonstrated experience working in smaller or mid-size companies where you built or maintained systems with limited resources and without a dedicated systems team around you
• Strong visual design skills - typography, color, iconography, spacing, and motion - with a portfolio that shows craft alongside systems thinking
• Proficiency in Figma, including component architecture, variables, auto layout, and design token management
• Track record of partnering with engineers to implement design systems in code - comfortable working across the design-to-development handoff
• Experience documenting systems clearly for audiences with varying levels of design fluency - product designers, engineers, and non-design stakeholders

You May Thrive in this Role if You:

• Are AI-native or rapidly becoming so - you actively use AI tools in your workflow and are always looking for new ways to leverage them
• Thrive in environments where you are the primary owner of a system, not one contributor among many - you make decisions, document them, and stand behind them
• Care as much about the quality of what the system produces as the quality of the system itself - visual craft and structural rigor are not in tension for you
• Are energized by constraints - limited headcount, fast timelines, and high standards feel like the right conditions to do your best work, not obstacles to it

Benefits and Perks:

• Health, Dental & Vision Full premium coverage for you. Partial coverage for dependents.
• Family Formation Up to $300,000 in fertility and family-building support, covering IVF, surrogacy, egg freezing, and adoption.
• Retirement: 401(k) with 6% match and immediate vesting.
• Compensation: Industry-competitive compensation, company bonus, and equity for every employee.
• Gender-Affirming Care : Industry-leading gender-affirming offerings with up to 90% cost coverage, access to Included Health, monthly stipends for HRT, and more.
• Time Off & Rest Flexible vacation policy. Two company-wide rest weeks per year.
• Other Benefits: Monthly stipends for cell phone, internet, wellness, food, and commuting, breakfast/lunch

About Grindr:

Grindr is building the Global Gayborhood in your Pocket. With more than 15 million monthly active users, Grindr has become a fundamental part of the gay community and is charting a path to make the world more free, equal, and just.

As a public company, we're moving into the next chapter: becoming an AI-native organization that's redefining what's possible for our community. We're embedding AI into our product and operations, moving with startup speed while operating at scale.

Everything we do is rooted in impact for our users and outcomes for the business. This isn't social work, it's impact through excellence. Business success is what gives us the power to serve our community and the seat at tables others can't reach. How we work is defined by Grindr Mode, our operating model that's moderately hardcore day-to-day and truly hardcore when it counts. We think like owners, drive real outcomes, create clarity through action, and push each other to go further than we thought possible.

We're headquartered in West Hollywood with offices in the Bay Area, Chicago, and New York. Our work extends beyond the product through Grindr for Equality, our nonprofit that's partnered with 100+ community organizations globally to advance safety, health, and human rights for LGBTQ+ people worldwide.

We're profitable, growing, and building a team of smart, driven people who bring different backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives to the work. Want to build technology at a massive scale that serves millions? Come join us!

Grindr is an equal-opportunity employer.

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