Introduction

At Air France – KLM, we are looking for a Senior Design System Lead to continue the shaping of our Design System and foundations. 
As a design community we create digital experiences for our customers that spread across different touchpoints, in a way that reflects both of our brands. To create the best possible experiences, all the basics should be in good shape. This allows us to deliver easy-to-use products that are accessible, consistent, inclusive and can be delivered in a fast and efficient way. Our design system plays a vital part with this by providing clear vision, standards, and ready-to-use components to build out any number of applications.
 

What are you going to do?

For this role, you will focus on the evolution of our Design System and foundations to extend and continuously improve this space, ensuring it aligns with industry standards and is following our design principles, so our design community can focus on building great products, used by millions of our passengers every year!
You will also oversee the Product Owner role for the design system, working with developers and managing the backlog within an agile set up. You have very strong design skills.
If you are passionate about driving design system excellence, operational efficiency, and delivering scalable experiences, this role is tailored for you.
 

Your key responsibilities:

• Govern the Design System and support an iterative approach, building in feedback and improvements from the system users.
• Maintain a clear idea of the business case for a Design System, articulate and document when necessary, understanding how this fits with the cross functional Digital approach.
• Be the Design System Product Owner which includes prioritizing developments and managing the backlog with your agile team (developers, designers, product managers, scrum master and other stekholders) amongst other Product Owner responsibilities, to ensure the design system aligns with project goals and user needs.
• Support the designers in the best usage of the Design System, paving the way for our design community by helping them applying the design system effectively, handling component requests or potential bugs.
• Advocate for the Design System's adoption and usage within AFKL Digital and where there is a potential crossover with other customer facing channels. Understand potential use cases for the Design System across the organization and see the ‘big picture’ of how it can support our multichannel goals.
• Be an active contributor to the Design System. Undertake ad-hoc work or provide relevant cover for other team tasks including supporting the Digital.
• Leverage research and understand the needs of the Design System users (developers, content creators and editors, designers, product owners) to improve it.
• Contribute to road mapping the Design System’s evolution with product managers, product owners, developers.
• Promote inclusivity and diversity in design choices and in components creation, by integrating accessibility standards (e.g., WCAG).
• Incorporate our brand values and beliefs in our design system digital assets so it reflects both identities.
• Create comprehensive and clear up-to-date documentation, explaining how to use everything the design system has to offer.
• Stay updated on design and technology trends to ensure the design system remains relevant.
   

Where do you land?

The design team of the Air France-KLM digital department, located in Paris (Charles de Gaulle airport), is at the heart of the digital strategy. It is made up of around 60 professionals from Product Design, Visual Design, User Research, as well as Service Design, UX writing and editorial writing. We are an ambitious, knowledgeable team dedicated to making a real difference to our customers' travel experience.
Within the Design team, you will be part of the Design Operations team which brings together the design system, visual creation, user research, accessibility and Design Ops strategy. The Design Operations team is made up of 11 designers working across 2 locations (Amstelveen (in the Netherlands) and Roissy Charles de Gaulle), so you can expect a dynamic mix of French, Dutch and other cultures.
 

Your profile

Your skills / capabilities:

• Strong design skills
• Organised and strong planning skills.
• Engaging communicator.
• Coach and develop others.
• Technical understanding of the tools and processes landscape of design systems (including Figma).
• Processes involved in managing a repository for design components.
• Good understanding of how to use design tokens to streamline the work of building, maintaining, and scaling products with a design system.
• Strong understanding of web and mobile design principles.
• Basic knowledge of Angular 16, HTML/ CSS and Storybook.

Your qualifications:

• A bachelor’s degree in design or a related field.
• A minimum 5/6 years of experience in the digital design field.
• Proven experience in designing and maintaining design systems at large scale.
• Experience in Product Owner role, or experience in working within an agile team with a Product Owner and strong wish to take on this function and its responsibilities.
• Knowledge of accessibility standards.
• Fluent in English and preferably also can speak Dutch.
• Position based in Amstelveen in KLM headquarters.

Our preference is for candidates who already live and work in the Netherlands.

Competencies