Staff/Lead Product Designer, Design System
Iceye · Espoo, Finland · 1mo ago
Role highlights:
Staff/Lead Product Designer, Design System
Location: Espoo, Uusimaa, Finland
Department: Product Management
Reports to: Director of Product Design
Employment type: Permanent
Workplace model: Hybrid (3 days / week in office)
Employment is subject to applicable security screening (incl. SUPO, where required)
Why this role matters:
We don't have a design system. What we have is a set of products built fast, for users who needed the imagery yesterday, that share a brand without sharing much else. Buttons that quietly disagree with each other. Spacing as a matter of personal taste. Several defensible ways to build a table, none of them the same. Nobody was sloppy - this is what shipping under real pressure leaves behind, and the interest on it now comes out of every sprint.
As a Staff / Lead Product Designer, you'll build the thing from nothing. That starts small and slightly unglamorous: a Figma library people actually reach for and a design playbook that settles the arguments worth settling. Then tokens with a structure that holds. Then components in code, documented well enough that nobody has to ask you how they work. By the time it's a design system in the full sense, the hardest part - people using it by default - is already solved, because you'll have built it in the open with the teams who had to adopt it.
This is a hands-on, opinionated, sleeves-rolled-up role. You'll be the highest craft bar in the domain and the person who raises everyone else's. You'll spend as much time with frontend engineers as with designers, quite possibly in their repo.
Real ownership. Very little existing process to inherit. If that sounds like a warning, it isn't. It's the job.
Who We Are
ICEYE is the world leader in sovereign intelligence from space. We deliver persistent monitoring capabilities to detect and respond to changes in any location on Earth.
ICEYE owns the world's largest and most advanced SAR (synthetic aperture radar) satellite constellation. To our customers we provide intelligence with unmatched quality, latency and revisit times, in any weather, day or night. To governments who choose to operate their own constellation we provide this proven capability as a sovereign system. ICEYE-built constellations serve customers in defence and intelligence, environmental monitoring, insurance and emergency management. We enable fast decisions that contribute to a safer future. Founded and headquartered in Finland, ICEYE operates globally with over 1000 employees across Europe, North America, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific..
Your day-to-day responsibilities
Start with a library and a playbook. Grow it into a system. Early on that means a Figma library, shared foundations and written guidance that gives teams a default instead of a decision. Later it means token architecture, components in code and documentation that scales past you. You'll decide the sequence, what's a token and what's a local decision, and where the line sits between flexibility and consistency. Those calls are yours to make, not to wait for.
Co-design with frontend, in the code. Our engineers will build most of the components. You'll be in the conversation about props, state and composition, reading PRs and prototyping in a branch when that's the fastest way to prove a point. Figma is where you think, not where the system ends up living.
Sell it. Repeatedly. A design system nobody adopts is a very tidy failure. You'll make the case to product managers, engineers and leadership, run office hours, and do migration work yourself when that's what unblocks a team.
Set and hold the craft bar. Across the whole domain, at the pixel level, in public. Kind about people, uncompromising about the work.
Put AI to actual work. Component documentation, variant generation, token maintenance, migration codemods, spec drafting. The tedious 60% of systems work is exactly what these tools are good at, and we want someone with strong instincts about which 60%.
Stay accountable for what ships. Adoption, consistency, shipped UI quality, how quickly teams can build - not the size of your Figma library.
Work across a big, networked organisation. Designers in other domains, brand and marketing design, sales engineers, customers. Consistency is a negotiation, not a mandate you email out.
What we're looking for
Must haves:
You've done 0-to-1 before, somewhere messy. You've taken a design system from nothing to adopted, in an organisation that had neither and wasn't yet convinced it needed one. You know how the first six months actually go, which corners are safe to cut, and how to structure tokens so they survive the next product rather than getting quietly forked.
You're fluent enough in code to be useful. Reading React and CSS, understanding component APIs, running the repo locally, opening a PR without ceremony. You don't need to be an engineer, but you do need to hold your end of a technical conversation and design things that are buildable as drawn.
You can influence without authority. You'll spend real energy convincing people who have their own roadmaps and their own deadlines. Being right won't be enough and you know that already.
Your craft is exceptional. Deep command of layout systems, typography, colour and visual hierarchy, applied in dense, complex professional interfaces. Detail-obsessed in the good way: the way that makes a whole product feel considered.
You have a real point of view on AI in design work. Not a vibe, a practice. You've used these tools to accelerate documentation, generate and audit variants, maintain tokens, or migrate code, and you can tell us where they helped and where they made a confident mess.
You've owned UX end-to-end for complex professional products. Discovery through shipped product through what you learned afterwards, with a portfolio that shows the systems thinking as well as the surfaces. Expert in Figma.
Nice to haves:
Accessibility as a default rather than an audit.
Experience with theming, dark mode, or multi-brand systems.
Data-dense, map-heavy or real-time interfaces.
Public writing or open-source contribution on design systems.
Time spent in high-stakes or regulated environments where getting it wrong is expensive.
The disposition, which matters more than any of the above: outcome-driven thinking over perfect artifacts (design is what ships); curiosity about users, about design and technology trends and history, and about better ways of working; pragmatic product judgment, knowing when "good and shipped" beats "perfect but late"; clear communication and respectful collaboration.
Application Process
Recruiter screen
Hiring Manager interview
Portfolio review
Task
Final interview
Working at ICEYE
At ICEYE, you'll join a diverse and highly engaged team united by the ambition to make the impossible possible. As a global scale-up, we combine speed and ambition with the opportunity to take real ownership from day one. Your growth, wellbeing, and success are a priority, with continuous professional development, training opportunities, and a culture where collaboration is how we win.
How We Work (Our Values)
Make the impossible possible: We set ambitious goals and stay calm under pressure. We bring grit, optimism, and ownership when things get hard, and we keep moving until we find a way.
Be curious: Go deep, ask questions, listen carefully, and think critically. Understand the "why" behind decisions.
See the big picture: Stay close to what's happening across the company so you can make better decisions. Consider how your work affects others.
Drive effective teamwork: Create psychological safety, invite different perspectives, and build inclusive teams. There are no bad questions.
Act as one team: We win together. We match tasks to the right owner and stay agile as priorities shift.
Have fun: What we do matters - and it should be enjoyable. Celebrate progress, take pride in results, and share the wins.
Benefits
Our benefits are designed to support your health and wellbeing, at work and beyond. We keep improving them based on employee feedback, and offerings vary by location. Talent Acquisition will confirm what applies for this role and location during the process.
Base salary range for this position is dependant on experience, and will be negotiated individually.
Our Commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
We want ICEYE to be a place where people can be themselves and do great work. Different backgrounds and perspectives make us stronger, which is why we work to create an environment where people feel included, respected, and able to speak up. Whatever your background, we want you to bring your authentic self to the table.
We're committed to fair, inclusive hiring and equal opportunity. Everyone is welcome to apply. If you need any adjustments or support during the recruitment process, tell us - we'll do our best to help.
Apply now to start your ICEYE journey, and help us continue to make the impossible possible together. Read more about ICEYE and working with us at iceye.com.