Lead Design Engineer - GM Design System

Description
Our Company
At General Motors, we combine the passion of a startup with the influence of a global powerhouse. We pride ourselves on designing, building, and selling the world's best vehicles and transportation solutions. Our vision of a future with zero crashes, zero emissions, and zero congestion is bold, and our people are leading the way as we seek to transform the future of personal mobility. To achieve this vision, we need people to join us who are passionate about crafting safer, better, and more sustainable ways for people to get around.
The Role
We're looking for a highly skilled Senior Design Engineer to help evolve and scale our enterprise design system. In this role, you'll collaborate with designers, engineers, and platform teams to build accessible, performant, and reusable components that power consistent experiences across multiple products and platforms. You'll also help define processes, tools, and standards that enable design excellence at scale.
What You'll Do

• Develop and maintain a scalable design system using vanilla HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Web Components.
• Write semantic, accessible HTML aligned with WCAG and WAI-ARIA best practices.
• Architect modular, maintainable CSS for large-scale applications.
• Build flexible, reusable components with a focus on performance, accessibility, and self-documentation.
• Ensure cross-browser and cross-device consistency for all UI components.
• Translate Figma designs into production-ready code, collaborating closely with designers.
• Contribute to design system documentation for easy adoption across teams.
• Define and enforce coding standards, best practices, and governance models for long-term scalability.
• Incorporate progressive enhancement and ensure graceful degradation when JavaScript is unavailable.
• Partner with engineering teams to integrate components into CI/CD pipelines and ensure robust testing (unit, visual regression, accessibility).
• Mentor developers on front-end architecture and design system best practices.

Your Skills & Abilities

• A bachelor's degree in a technical or design related field, or work experience commensurate with education.
• 9+ Years of experience working as a professional Design Engineer or Design Technologist.
• 3+ years of direct people management experience.
• Proven expertise in vanilla HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Web Components (not reliant on frameworks).
• Strong understanding of front-end architecture and strategies for scaling CSS in enterprise environments.
• Deep knowledge of semantic HTML, WCAG, and ARIA accessibility standards.
• Experience with progressive enhancement and performance optimization.
• Ability to write clean, maintainable, and self-documenting code.
• Proven experience building or contributing to large-scale design systems or UI libraries.

What Will Give You a Competitive Edge (Preferred Qualifications)

• 4+ years of experience working with React, Angular or other advanced modern JavaScript frameworks.
• Proven expertise with design tokens, Style Dictionary, or similar tools.
• Knowledge of testing frameworks (e.g., Jest, Playwright) and visual regression tools (e.g., Percy).
• Curiosity for emerging front-end techniques and a passion for continuous learning.
• Background in web design, design tooling, or collaborating heavily with design teams.
• Previous experience leading, developing, and inspiring a team.

About GM
Our vision is a world with Zero Crashes, Zero Emissions and Zero Congestion and we embrace the responsibility to lead the change that will make our world better, safer and more equitable for all.
Why Join Us
We believe we all must make a choice every day - individually and collectively - to drive meaningful change through our words, our deeds and our culture. Every day, we want every employee to feel they belong to one General Motors team.
Total Rewards | Benefits Overview
From day one, we're looking out for your well-being-at work and at home-so you can focus on realizing your ambitions. Learn how GM supports a rewarding career that rewards you personally by visiting Total Rewards resources.
Non-Discrimination and Equal Employment Opportunities (U.S.)
General Motors is committed to being a workplace that is not only free of unlawful discrimination, but one that genuinely fosters inclusion and belonging. We strongly believe that providing an inclusive workplace creates an environment in which our employees can thrive and develop better products for our customers.
All employment decisions are made on a non-discriminatory basis without regard to sex, race, color, national origin, citizenship status, religion, age, disability, pregnancy or maternity status, sexual orientation, gender identity, status as a veteran or protected veteran, or any other similarly protected status in accordance with federal, state and local laws.
We encourage interested candidates to review the key responsibilities and qualifications for each role and apply for any positions that match their skills and capabilities. Applicants in the recruitment process may be required, where applicable, to successfully complete a role-related assessment(s) and/or a pre-employment screening prior to beginning employment. To learn more, visit How we Hire.
Accommodations
General Motors offers opportunities to all job seekers including individuals with disabilities. If you need a reasonable accommodation to assist with your job search or application for employment, email us [email protected] or call us at 800-865-7580. In your email, please include a description of the specific accommodation you are requesting as well as the job title and requisition number of the position for which you are applying.