UX Designer III

Seeking a Senior Contract UX Designer to complete the design foundation of an internal design system based on IBM's open-source Carbon Design System. Carbon has already been imported into Figma and significantly modified to reflect visual identity and internal application needs.
This is a defined contractor engagement focused on auditing and completing the existing Figma library. The finished system will support new internal web and mobile application work. The engagement does not include redesigning or remediating existing internal applications.
The ideal contractor has 5 to 10 years of relevant UX or product design experience, including direct experience building, extending, or maintaining a substantial design system in Figma.

Project Scope and Deliverables
The contractor will audit and complete the existing Figma design system. Deliverables include:

• Audit the current library and recommend a prioritized completion plan.
• Finalize the variable and token structure and apply it consistently across the library.
• Complete styling for the in-scope Carbon components using current Figma best practices.
• Configure properties, variants, responsive behavior, and interactive states so designers can use components without detaching instances.
• Strengthen the Data Table to support data-heavy internal applications.
• Create approximately three to five custom components, including navigation and card elements, based on gaps confirmed during the audit.
• Collaborate with the Design System Developer to align Figma assets, tokens, naming, states, and coded components.
• Publish the completed library and recommend a process for requesting, reviewing, and accepting future contributions.

If time permits after completing the approved light theme, the contractor may also establish or extend the variables and tokens required for a dark theme.
Engagement and Review Model
Acting product owner will provide priorities, clarify intent, consolidate internal UX feedback, and coordinate acceptance decisions. The contractor will translate that direction into appropriate design-system solutions and will be expected to explain recommendations, tradeoffs, constraints, and unresolved decisions.
The engagement will include recurring project check-ins with the acting product owner and scheduled UX review points. These interactions are intended to align deliverables, resolve decisions, and review progress against the contracted scope. Senior and Lead UX Designers will serve as the final arbiters of design acceptance.
Required Experience and Skills

• 5 to 10 years of relevant UX, product design, or design-system experience.
• Demonstrated experience building, extending, or maintaining a substantial design system in Figma.
• Advanced proficiency with Figma components, component properties, variants, variables, modes, styles, libraries, and prototyping.
• Demonstrated experience creating scalable variable and design-token structures.
• Experience adapting or extending an established design system rather than designing only stand-alone product interfaces.
• Strong understanding of component anatomy, states, responsive behavior, reusable interaction patterns, and systematic design.
• Experience designing complex, data-heavy interface components such as tables, filters, forms, pagination, sorting, selection, and bulk actions.
• Ability to create flexible Figma components that support intended use without detaching instances.
• Working knowledge of accessibility requirements and their effect on component design, contrast, focus treatment, interaction states, and usability.
• Ability to audit an existing library, identify gaps, recommend a practical completion plan, and independently execute against an approved scope.
• Ability to convert consolidated stakeholder direction into cohesive design-system decisions.
• Strong attention to detail, organization, consistency, and maintainability.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to explain design-system decisions to designers, developers, and product partners.

Preferred Experience

• Direct experience with IBM's Carbon Design System.
• Experience adapting an open-source design system to an organization's brand and application needs.
• Experience designing systems for enterprise, operational, or internal applications.
• Experience supporting both web and mobile application design.
• Familiarity with the relationship among design tokens, CSS variables, themes, and coded component libraries.
• Experience collaborating directly with front-end engineers on design-system implementation.
• Familiarity with React component libraries.
• Experience defining design-system contribution, review, or acceptance practices.
• Experience creating light and dark themes through semantic variables and tokens.

Completion Criteria
The engagement is complete when the agreed Figma library is styled, connected to approved variables and tokens, published for internal use, and ready to support new internal web and mobile application designs.