Design Lead

Summit K12 is building a lean, modern design function — and you'll be at the center of it. As a Design Lead, you own the user experience for your product area and co-steward our shared design system, while staying hands-on in Figma every day. This is a player-coach role: you will design, lead our design efforts, and partner closely with Product Managers as a trusted consultant, helping bridge the gap between our design and product teams to ensure cohesive, high-quality outcomes.

We're a customer-driven, growing company — many of us came from the classrooms and districts we serve, so deep user knowledge lives in-house. We move fast: rather than lengthy research cycles, we validate with the educator expertise on our own team and quick feedback from real users. We're looking for someone who ships confidently without waiting for perfect data, uses AI tools to multiply their output, and earns influence through craft and judgment rather than title or process.

Key Responsibilities

Steward the Design System

• Maintain and evolve the Summit K12 design system — components, patterns, typography, color, accessibility standards, and interaction behaviors
• Keep the system documented, versioned, and genuinely used, so teams move faster with it than without it
• Partner with Engineering to ensure components are technically feasible and consistently implemented
• Drive adoption — you and your fellow Design Leads share accountability for the system actually being used across teams, reducing UX fragmentation through enablement and reusable patterns rather than policing
• Decide, jointly with your fellow Design Leads, what enters the system and when projects in your area can deviate from it, escalating consequential additions, cross-product deviations, and any calls the leads can't align on.

Consult with Product

• Act as a design consultant and force multiplier to Product Managers — in a world where a PM can spin up an AI prototype in an afternoon, you're the one who makes it shippable: coherent, accessible, and on-system
• Engage early in discovery to shape solutions, not just review them at the end
• Make the case for design through outcomes — demonstrate how strong UX reduces rework, support burden, and churn
• Be the Design Lead your teams trust for day-to-day design calls

Design, Hands-On

• Spend real time in Figma — this is a shipping role, not a pure oversight role
• Translate platform experience strategy into concrete, consistent navigation, workflows, and interaction patterns across all user types
• Leverage AI tools (e.g., Claude, v0, Figma AI) to accelerate design and development workflows
• Integrate Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles into the design system so interaction patterns work for the full range of learner abilities

Validate Lean

• Use lightweight validation — heuristic reviews, quick user feedback loops, analytics, and support signals — in place of heavyweight research studies
• Know when a decision needs evidence and when experienced judgment is enough
• Advocate for accessibility, clarity, and simplicity in every experience

Set The Standard

• Set clear expectations for quality, ownership, and accountability
• Run lean design workflows in Figma and Jira that support fast iteration and predictable delivery
• Foster a culture of user empathy, experimentation, and low-ego collaboration
• Lead, mentor and develop the designers you work with

Skills, Knowledge and Expertise

Required

• 6+ years in product/UX design, including owning a design system
• Experience leading or mentoring designers while staying hands-on
• Fluency in Figma and comfort managing design work in Jira
• Active use of AI tools in your design workflow, and enthusiasm for operating as an AI-leveraged, lean design function
• Strong grounding in user-centered design, interaction design, and Universal Design for Learning
• Experience with WCAG accessibility standards, including interpreting ACRs and driving remediation
• A track record of building design cohesion through cross-functional partnership — influence earned, not imposed
• Comfort operating in a fast-moving environment: shipping without waiting for perfect data, with limited resources and tight timelines

Preferred

• EdTech experience, or deep accessibility/UDL work that translates quickly to K-12 contexts
• Experience designing SaaS or platform-based products
• Understanding of the workflows and daily realities of teachers, school administrators, and district leaders
• Experience collaborating with distributed or global teams across time zones
• Experience in lean or scaling organizations

How We'll Know It's Working

• A single, consistently applied design system across all products
• Product Managers seek out design partnership because it makes their features better and faster to ship
• Reduced UX inconsistency and rework during development
• Faster delivery through reusable patterns and clear standards
• Positive usability feedback from teachers, students, and administrators

Benefits

Summit K12 offers a comprehensive benefits package. Highlights include:

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance with multiple plan options
• Company-paid short-term disability, long-term disability, and life insurance
• 401(k) retirement plan
• Paid Time Off (PTO) program
• 10 paid holidays plus 1 floating holiday annually
• Wellness resources and support programs

Summit K12 is an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to providing equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, genetic information, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local laws. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation, and training.

Originally posted on Himalayas