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Yum! Brands · 1 day ago

Senior Manager, Design Systems

Plano, TX

Full-time

Onsite

Senior Level, Lead/Staff

$160K/yr - $180K/yr

10+ years exp

Yum! Brands is seeking a Senior Manager of Design Systems who will evolve their design system from a single-brand library into a multi-brand infrastructure. The role involves bridging design and technical execution, managing a team, and ensuring consistency and quality in design practices across the organization.

Food and BeverageHospitalityRestaurants

Growth Opportunities

H1B Sponsor Likely

Responsibilities

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

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

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

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

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

Qualification

Design Systems LeadershipFigma ArchitectureComponent APIsCross-Functional CollaborationUX/UI DesignGovernance ModelsFront-End FrameworksSystemic ThinkingCommunicationMentoring Skills

Required

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

Benefits

Bonus elibility

Company

Yum! Brands

Glassdoor4.2

Yum! Brands is a quick-service restaurant brand that primarily operates the likes of KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell.

Founded in 1997

Louisville, Kentucky, USA

1001-5000 employees

http://www.yum.com

H1B Sponsorship

Yum! Brands has a track record of offering H1B sponsorships. Please note that this does not guarantee sponsorship for this specific role. Below presents additional info for your reference. (Data Powered by US Department of Labor)

Distribution of Different Job Fields Receiving Sponsorship

Represents job field similar to this job

Trends of Total Sponsorships

2021 (1)

2020 (2)