We are seeking a visionary and deeply technical Principal Engineer (Design Systems) to lead the evolution of our enterprise design system at scale. This role is responsible for setting the technical direction, driving architectural excellence, and enabling efficient, consistent, and accessible digital product delivery across the bank’s platforms. Additionally, this role will collaborate with adopting teams, build stakeholder relationships and represent our design system (along with design/program leadership) in various meetings, presentations and forums across the enterprise. Must have deep experience in design systems in an enterprise environment, working closely with designers, as well as demonstrable front-end development excellence.
As a top 20 U.S. bank, we are transforming how we build digital experiences. Our enterprise design system is central to this transformation, and this role will be instrumental in shaping its future.
Technical Leadership
- Define and evolve the architecture of our enterprise design system, ensuring scalability, performance, and accessibility.
- Lead the engineering strategy for our Enterprise Design System, including component architecture, tooling, CI/CD integration, and platform governance.
- Serve as the technical authority for the Enterprise Design System.
- Author organized, clean, efficient, and secure source code at expert level in a minimum of 2 programming languages with the ability to build shared libraries.
- Responsible for ensuring code quality is aligned to industry and corporate standards and expectations while also mentoring junior team members' work
- Promote and evangelize the Enterprise Design System within the Bank to promote consistency and partner with adopted teams to support auditability to the intended design
System Design & Delivery
- Collaborate with design, product, and accessibility leads to translate design principles into robust, reusable code.
- Drive adoption of modern front-end frameworks (e.g., Web Components) and ensure alignment with enterprise standards / SDLC.
- Oversee the development of shared libraries, tokens, and component APIs that support multi-brand, multi-platform delivery.
- Accountable for the overall code change and review process.
- Accountable for UI / visual regression test automation strategy and execution
Engineering Excellence
- Establish and enforce coding standards, testing frameworks, and documentation practices.
- Lead performance optimization, accessibility compliance, and security reviews for design system assets.
- Champion automation and continuous integration to streamline delivery and reduce friction.
Cross-Functional Collaboration
- Partner with enterprise architecture, platform engineering, and digital product teams to align on technical strategy.
- Represent the design systems team in governance forums, architecture reviews, and strategic planning sessions.
- Advocate for the design system’s role in accelerating product delivery and improving customer experience.
Qualifications
Higher Education / Degree Requirements
- Associate’s degree and a minimum of 9 years in front-end engineering and scalable design systems.
OR - Bachelor's degree and a minimum of 7 years in front-end engineering and scalable design systems.
- In lieu of a degree: a combined minimum of 11 years’ education and/or work experience, including a minimum of 7 years in front-end engineering and scalable design systems.
Experience Required
- Expert analytical skills specific to browser side / front-end application development
- Proven leadership in architecting and delivering enterprise-grade UI frameworks.
- Ability to multitask on multiple complex projects
- Strong organizational and time management skills
- Mastery of HTML, JavaScript/TypeScript, CSS, Token Architecture.
- Experience with accessibility standards (WCAG), performance optimization, Enterprise SDLC, and CI/CD pipelines.
- Experience driving project milestones and delivery dates across multiple teams
- Strong verbal and written communication and stakeholder management skills.
- Proven experience leading a project or initiative
- Experience partnering with and presenting to multiple senior stakeholders within technology and business departments
- Proven subject matter expert of required technical skill set
- Practical knowledge and execution of UI Test Automation and automated Visual Regression Testing
- Practical application of Usability Testing for components against target state behaviors
Preferred
- Experience in financial services or regulated industries.
- Familiarity with Figma, Storybook, and design-to-code workflows.
- Contributions to open-source design systems or component libraries.
- Experience in Native App development (Swift, Kotlin/Java)
What Success Looks Like
- Enterprise Design System is adopted across all major digital platforms with measurable improvements in delivery speed, consistency, and accessibility.
- Engineering teams are empowered to build faster and more confidently using well-documented, performant, and extensible components.
- The design system becomes a strategic enabler of digital transformation across the bank.
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M&T Bank is committed to fair, competitive, and market-informed pay for our employees. The pay range for this position is $130,795.52 - $217,992.53 Annual (USD). The successful candidate’s particular combination of knowledge, skills, and experience will inform their specific compensation.LocationBuffalo, New York, United States of AmericaTop Skills
What We Do
M&T Bank is a multi-state community-focused bank serving New York, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Connecticut, Virginia, West Virginia and Washington, D.C. Founded in 1856, the company provides banking, investment, insurance and mortgage financial services to more than 3.6 million consumer, business and government clients.
