Careem is building the Everything App for the greater Middle East, making it easier than ever to move around, order food and groceries, manage payments, and more. Careem is led by a powerful purpose to simplify and improve the lives of people and build an awesome organisation that inspires. Since 2012, Careem has created earnings for over 2.5 million Captains, simplified the lives of over 70 million customers, and built a platform for the region’s best talent to thrive and for entrepreneurs to scale their businesses. Careem operates in over 70 cities across 10 countries, from Morocco to Pakistan.
As a Senior Designer on the Design System at Careem, you will help drive the evolution of the company's design language, ensuring seamless, scalable, and user-centred experiences across digital platforms. This role requires an expert in design systems who can work as part of a cross-functional team, define and implement standards, and manage the development and maintenance of a comprehensive design system that supports Careem's strategic goals. You will be instrumental in aligning the design system with business objectives, ensuring accessibility, fostering innovation, and mentoring a team of designers.
Key Responsibilities & Competencies
Design System Evolution
- Own and contribute to the development and iteration of Careem's design system, ensuring alignment with both business goals and user needs.
- Define and implement scalable design standards, guidelines, and best practices that enhance consistency and user experience across platforms.
- Demonstrate a high level of expertise in Careem's product space, guiding design decisions and influencing product strategies.
- Advocate for the design system's value, promoting efficiency, consistency, and quality throughout the organisation.
Collaboration & Stakeholder Engagement
- Partner closely with product management, engineering, and other designers to align design solutions with broader business strategies.
- Actively manage stakeholder relationships, including executives, ensuring clear communication, alignment on priorities, and transparency throughout the design process.
- Actively lead guilds, gathering input across product areas to shape a viable and scalable design system.
- Handle high volumes of feedback, using it effectively to refine system components and maintain alignment with stakeholder needs.
Component Ownership & System Implementation
- Own the full lifecycle of design system components, from inception to shipping and iteration, ensuring they are optimised for scalability and usability.
- Develop and maintain comprehensive documentation for the design system, ensuring accessibility for product managers, designers, and engineers.
- Work with engineering teams to transform design patterns into deployable components, ensuring technical feasibility and high-quality execution.
- Advocate for accessibility best practices (WCAG), partnering with the digital accessibility team to ensure an inclusive design system.
Strategic Product & Project Management
- Work with Product teams to align on the Design system backlog and roadmap of design system components, balancing immediate functionality with long-term scalability.
- Facilitate decision-making to define the scope and timing of implementation.
- Proactively identify opportunities for system improvement, driving initiatives that deliver high-impact outcomes for Careem.
- Define and track success metrics for the design system adoption and effectiveness
- Establish governance models and contribution processes for the design system
- Build and manage relationships with external design system communities and vendors
Driving Innovation & Continuous Improvement
- Stay ahead of industry trends, regularly introducing new patterns, tools, and design approaches to the team.
- Establish and direct ongoing reviews and critique sessions to ensure the design system maintains its quality, consistency, and usefulness.
- Lead by example in adopting an innovative mindset, pushing the boundaries of design where appropriate, whilst respecting established standards.
Mentorship & Team Development
- Contribute to evolving the visual direction for Careem, fostering a collaborative and high-performance culture.
- Serve as a mentor, offering guidance to both immediate team members and other designers across Careem, helping them navigate complex design challenges and develop their skills.
- Inspire and motivate the team by setting a clear vision for design initiatives and supporting strategy across the organisation.
Communication & System Advocacy
- Serve as an advocate of the design system within Careem, effectively communicating its purpose and benefits to diverse audiences across the organisation.
- Regularly gather feedback from design, product, and engineering teams to continuously improve the design system.
- Synthesise insights from stakeholders into actionable system improvements, ensuring ongoing alignment with business objectives.
Quality, Precision & Thought Leadership
- Ensure that all design work reflects a high degree of accuracy, with edge cases and potential risks fully considered and documented.
- Encourage simplification and unification of design patterns to manage complexity, whilst justifying and explaining any necessary exceptions to the system.
- Produce high-quality prototypes, using them strategically to help teams make informed business decisions.
Cross-Functional Influence & Strategic Vision
- Represent the Design organisation at Careem, advocating for design system initiatives and influencing decision-making at the highest levels of the company.
- Align design system processes with Careem's overarching vision, driving organisational change and promoting innovation.
- Leverage data, storytelling, and visual design skills to build consensus and inspire stakeholders at all levels.
Required Experience & Qualifications
- 8+ years of experience in product design, with at least 3-4 years focused on design systems
- Proven track record of successfully implementing and scaling design systems in complex organisations
- Strong experience with the ability to articulate your system thinking and component design expertise
Technical Skills
- Proficiency in modern design tools (Figma, etc.) and version control systems
- Understanding of front-end technologies and their impact on design system implementation
- Experience with design tokens and systematic approaches to design
What we’ll provide you
We offer colleagues the opportunity to drive impact in the region while they learn and grow. As a full time Careem colleague, you will be able to:
- Work and learn from great minds by joining a community of inspiring colleagues.
- Put your passion to work in a purposeful organisation dedicated to creating impact in a region with a lot of untapped potential.
- Explore new opportunities to learn and grow every day.
- Work 4 days a week in office & 1 day from home, and remotely from any country in the world for 30 days a year with unlimited vacation days per year. (If you are in an individual contributor role in tech, you will have 2 office days a week and 3 to work from home.)
- Access to healthcare benefits and fitness reimbursements for health activities including gym, health club, and training classes.
