Senior Design Technologist

About Datacom

Datacom partners with organizations and communities throughout Australia and New Zealand, aiming to impact people’s lives positively by leveraging technology to foster innovation and growth.

Role Overview

The Senior Design Technologist role uniquely blends design systems methodologies with engineering execution. Collaborating closely with design leaders, researchers, and engineering teams, you will be responsible for the technical stewardship of the organization's design system, ensuring it serves as the authoritative source for design components and guidelines.

Your duties involve creating and sustaining scalable component libraries, design tokens, user experience guidelines, and production-ready UI components that promote efficient and consistent product delivery. This position demands a robust front-end engineering skillset alongside comprehensive design systems expertise, bridging conceptual design choices with functional code.

Additionally, you will contribute to the advancement of automation tools, pipelines, and AI-augmented workflows that enhance delivery speed and enable scalable product development processes.

Work Environment

Datacom's main offices are across New Zealand, with core teams located in Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch. Though in-person collaboration is encouraged, the company supports flexible work arrangements balancing office presence and working from home.

Key Responsibilities

• Maintain and own the design system as the definitive source for components, interaction patterns, and UX standards.
• Develop and sustain production-quality UI components and scalable front-end design patterns.
• Implement design decisions, including tokens, interaction behaviors, accessibility requirements, and layout rules within reusable, structured systems.
• Create and manage comprehensive documentation accessible to designers, developers, and AI tooling.
• Build and maintain automation pipelines translating design specifications into operational code.
• Ensure front-end code adheres to quality, performance, accessibility (WCAG), and coding standards.
• Collaborate with engineering teams for seamless integration of design system artifacts within build processes.
• Iterate on the design system informed by customer feedback, user research, and insights.
• Provide technical input during design and pattern governance discussions.
• Investigate emerging front-end technologies, AI tools, and design-to-code pipelines to optimize development workflows.
• Share expertise to promote widespread and scalable adoption of the design system across teams.
• Maintain exceptional visual detail and interaction quality as applications grow.
• Support standardized methodologies, tools, and processes to uphold best practices in design system management.

Required Qualifications and Skills

• At least 5 years of combined experience in UI/visual design and/or front-end development.
• Proven track record of building and managing large-scale design systems or component libraries.
• Advanced front-end programming skills including HTML, CSS, JavaScript/TypeScript, and modern frameworks like React.
• In-depth understanding of design systems architecture, token management, component APIs, and documentation.
• Proficient in converting design decisions into high-quality, production-ready front-end code.
• Experienced with modern design and development tools such as Figma, Storybook, GitHub, MUI, and design token workflows.
• Knowledgeable about accessibility standards (WCAG), user-centered design, and information architecture.
• Ability to work effectively in multidisciplinary teams comprising designers, researchers, and developers.
• Skilled in developing clear, organized system documentation suitable for both human and AI-assisted consumption.
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills to clearly explain technical and design rationales.
• Bachelor’s degree in Design, Computer Science, Software Engineering, or equivalent professional experience.

Desirable Attributes

• Experience in AI-enhanced or AI-driven product development settings.
• Familiarity with agentic AI workflows, orchestration platforms, and AI-assisted design-to-code pipelines.
• Understanding of machine-readable documentation and AI context engineering.
• Background in SaaS or product-driven companies.
• Knowledge of CMS and CRM systems.
• Expertise in front-end performance tuning.
• Relevant certifications in front-end development, UX/UI design, or design systems.

Why Work at Datacom?

As one of the largest providers of IT professional services in Australia and New Zealand, Datacom maintains an agile, dynamic culture that nurtures personal growth. The organization values its staff, providing perks like social events, relaxation spaces, remote work options, flexible hours, and training opportunities to support career development and work-life balance.

Employees are appreciated in a flat-structured, collaborative environment where they can contribute meaningfully while working on challenging technology projects across enterprise clients. Datacom is committed to fostering an inclusive, friendly workplace that supports everyone’s well-being and encourages authenticity.