We’re looking for a systems-minded design leader who can translate vision into scalable infrastructure. As Senior Manager of Design Systems, you’ll evolve Yum!’s design system, from a single-brand library into the foundation for multi-brand, operator, and guest-facing experiences across Byte’s ecosystem.
You’ll bridge the gap between design craft and technical execution—ensuring every designer and developer can design, build, and ship faster with consistency, accessibility, and quality.
This is a pivotal role for someone who can think strategically, work technically, and lead collaboratively in a high-change, multi-brand environment.
What You’ll Do
1. Evolve and Scale the Helium Design System
- Lead the evolution of Helium into a production-grade design system—structured, documented, and aligned with engineering implementation.
- Audit, rationalize, and version component libraries; define naming, tokens, and usage conventions.
- Partner with front-end leads to establish design-to-code parity, Storybook documentation, and automated QA for accessibility and performance.
- Deliver Helium v2 as the baseline for multi-brand and operator-facing experiences.
2. Build Foundations for Multi-Brand and Operator-Facing Systems
- Define token architecture, theming, and brand expression models to enable cross-brand customization and localization.
- Partner with the Head of Design and Director of Digital Ordering to prototype the operator-facing design system (Nitrogen) that will power tools like Smart Ops, Portal, and Coach.
- Create guidelines that unify guest- and operator-facing patterns into a cohesive experience language.
3. Architect Governance and Operations
- Implement the governance model (intake → review → release → deprecation) to maintain quality and consistency.
- Establish design system rituals—component reviews, change logs, release cycles, contribution audits—and measure adoption and velocity.
- Integrate with engineering and design ops teams to align JIRA workflows, Figma management, and contribution tracking.
- Define success metrics that tie system maturity to business and design velocity outcomes.
4. Lead and Grow the Design Systems Team
- Manage and mentor a small team of system designers; coach on component design, documentation, and technical collaboration.
- Define hiring needs, grow team capabilities, and establish learning pathways for systems and tooling expertise.
- Model calm, clarity, and structure—bringing order to high-change environments.
- Foster a culture of enablement where system adoption feels empowering, not restrictive.
5. Cross-Functional Leadership
- Collaborate with engineering to integrate Helium into the product development lifecycle and ensure consistent handoff between Figma and code.
- Partner with Product and Brand Design leads to align patterns across Digital Ordering and Smart Ops.
- Communicate roadmap, adoption metrics, and upcoming releases to cross-functional partners and executives.
- Advocate for scalable design excellence—positioning Helium as infrastructure that accelerates innovation.
Mindset and Leadership Approach
- Systemic Thinker: Connects design, brand, and engineering systems into a single ecosystem.
- Builder: Brings hands-on energy—designing components, documenting rigorously, and proving value through delivery.
- Translator: Moves fluidly between design, engineering, and executive conversations.
- Leader: Develops people, not just processes—turns ambiguity into clarity for teams.
- Pragmatic Visionary: Balances craft excellence with delivery urgency; builds for now and next.
What You’ll Bring
- 10–12+ years of experience in Product or UX Design, with 5+ years leading or contributing to large-scale design systems.
- Proven record of building or evolving systems in enterprise, multi-product, or multi-brand environments.
- Strong design foundation in UX/UI craft—able to guide component design decisions that balance usability, brand, and scalability.
- Deep technical fluency in Figma architecture, tokens, component APIs, accessibility, and front-end frameworks (e.g., React, Storybook, CSS/JS tokens).
- Experience leading cross-functional teams and partnering closely with engineers on design-to-code workflow integration.
- Demonstrated success introducing governance models, release cadences, and documentation that scale with product velocity.
- Ability to lead through ambiguity and influence without authority—using clarity, communication, and structure to align teams.
- Comfortable operating in complex, distributed tool environments (multiple JIRA instances, cross-team intake).
- Excellent communicator—capable of framing design systems work in terms of business impact, velocity, and technical quality.
Salary Range: $160,000 - $180,000 + bonus elibility
What We Do
Yum! Brands, Inc., based in Louisville, Kentucky, and its subsidiaries franchise or operate a system of over 55,000 restaurants in more than 155 countries and territories under the Company’s concepts – KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and the Habit Burger Grill. The Company's KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut brands are global leaders of the chicken, Mexican-style food, and pizza categories, respectively. The Habit Burger Grill is a fast casual restaurant concept specializing in made-to-order chargrilled burgers, sandwiches and more. What makes Yum! a great place to work? It's our people. As the world's largest restaurant company, we invest in people capability so that our global workforce can make the most of their careers. With ongoing opportunities for personal and professional success, we've built a culture that rewards and recognizes great effort while providing the flexibility that is so important to all of us.
