Design Systems Manager
OpenAI
Location
San Francisco
Employment Type
Full time
Department
Product Design
Compensation
- $393K – $495K • Offers Equity
The base pay offered may vary depending on multiple individualized factors, including market location, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. If the role is non-exempt, overtime pay will be provided consistent with applicable laws. In addition to the salary range listed above, total compensation also includes generous equity, performance-related bonus(es) for eligible employees, and the following benefits.
Medical, dental, and vision insurance for you and your family, with employer contributions to Health Savings Accounts
Pre-tax accounts for Health FSA, Dependent Care FSA, and commuter expenses (parking and transit)
401(k) retirement plan with employer match
Paid parental leave (up to 24 weeks for birth parents and 20 weeks for non-birthing parents), plus paid medical and caregiver leave (up to 8 weeks)
Paid time off: flexible PTO for exempt employees and up to 15 days annually for non-exempt employees
13+ paid company holidays, and multiple paid coordinated company office closures throughout the year for focus and recharge, plus paid sick or safe time (1 hour per 30 hours worked, or more, as required by applicable state or local law)
Mental health and wellness support
Employer-paid basic life and disability coverage
Annual learning and development stipend to fuel your professional growth
Daily meals in our offices, and meal delivery credits as eligible
Relocation support for eligible employees
Additional taxable fringe benefits, such as charitable donation matching and wellness stipends, may also be provided.
More details about our benefits are available to candidates during the hiring process.
This role is at-will and OpenAI reserves the right to modify base pay and other compensation components at any time based on individual performance, team or company results, or market conditions.
About the team
Design plays a critical role here. To succeed in our mission, it’s crucial that we make our technology intuitive and accessible. We’re hiring a product designer to create products that are easy to use, beautiful, and push the boundaries of what’s possible. As an early team member, you’ll have a huge part in shaping our product direction and design culture.
About the Role
We are looking for a Design Systems Manager to lead the evolution of ChatGPT and other OpenAI product’s design system. This role will oversee the creation, maintenance, and adoption of the components, patterns, and guidelines that power ChatGPT’s product experiences across surfaces (web, mobile, voice, interactive modules). You’ll ensure design and engineering teams work from a consistent, scalable foundation that supports rapid iteration while maintaining quality and coherence. You will be responsible for upleveling and holding a high bar for craft across all of our surfaces.
This is both a leadership and hands-on role: you’ll manage a small team of designers, partner deeply with the entire design team, as well as engineering and product.
What you'll do in this role
Define the vision and roadmap for ChatGPT’s design system.
Lead and mentor a hybrid team of designers, design engineers, iconographers and more.
Establish component libraries, accessibility standards, and interaction guidelines that support multimodal experiences (text, voice, image, video, interactive modules).
Partner with Product Design, Research, and Engineering to ensure adoption and alignment.
Build contribution models so new patterns and components flow back into the system.
Define governance processes that balance consistency with product velocity.
Ensure accessibility, internationalization, and performance are baked into every component.
Advocate for system-driven workflows across design and engineering orgs.
You might thrive in this role if you have
10+ years of experience in product design, design systems, or front-end engineering.
3+ years of experience leading teams (designers, engineers, or cross-functional).
Expertise in Figma, component libraries, and modern design system practices.
Strong technical fluency in React, CSS, and accessibility standards.
Experience building systems that scale across multiple surfaces (desktop, mobile, web, voice).
Strong communication and stakeholder management skills.
Experience in fast-paced product environments with multiple priorities.
About OpenAI
OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company dedicated to ensuring that general-purpose artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. We push the boundaries of the capabilities of AI systems and seek to safely deploy them to the world through our products. AI is an extremely powerful tool that must be created with safety and human needs at its core, and to achieve our mission, we must encompass and value the many different perspectives, voices, and experiences that form the full spectrum of humanity.
We are an equal opportunity employer, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability, genetic information, or other applicable legally protected characteristic.
For additional information, please see OpenAI’s Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity Policy Statement.
Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with applicable law, including the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the California Fair Chance Act. For unincorporated Los Angeles County workers: we reasonably believe that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship with the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of a conditional offer of employment: protect computer hardware entrusted to you from theft, loss or damage; return all computer hardware in your possession (including the data contained therein) upon termination of employment or end of assignment; and maintain the confidentiality of proprietary, confidential, and non-public information. In addition, job duties require access to secure and protected information technology systems and related data security obligations.
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We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities, and requests can be made via this link.
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At OpenAI, we believe artificial intelligence has the potential to help people solve immense global challenges, and we want the upside of AI to be widely shared. Join us in shaping the future of technology.
Compensation Range: $393K - $495K