JOB SUMMARY

We are seeking an experienced Design System Lead to own and scale our Global Design System (GDS), which underpins the digital experiences across CIB. This role is pivotal in harmonising multiple existing design systems into a unified, enterprise-wide standard. As the design system lead, you will need to collaborate closely with Design Directors, designers, developers, and business stakeholders to define design standards, components, and interaction patterns that align with the Bank’s brand and regulatory requirements. Beyond governance, you champion design quality and advocate for user-centred thinking, ensuring that digital experiences are both visually cohesive and operationally scalable across platforms and regions.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Strategy

• Define and communicate the long-term vision, scope, and roadmap for the Global Design System (GDS).
• Harmonise multiple design systems into a single, scalable enterprise platform aligned with brand and regulatory needs.
• Position the GDS as a strategic enabler of speed, quality, and consistency in client digital experiences.
• Experience in auditing existing UIs and identifying patterns for systemisation.
• Hands-on experience of prototyping/design methods and tools (Figma, Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, etc) and user testing methodologies. Excellent visual designing skills for web, dashboard, mobile, PowerPoint, to drive concept to actual solution

Business

• Partner with product, tech, and business teams to link GDS outcomes with commercial impact (time-to-market, cost efficiency, customer satisfaction).
• Identify and prioritise business use cases where GDS adoption will deliver measurable ROI.
• Act as an advocate for GDS adoption to senior stakeholders, demonstrating value to the wider organisation.
• Understanding of the transaction banking domain and Financial Market domain will be added advantage but not mandatory.

Processes

• Establish and own the end-to-end processes for contribution, versioning, testing, and release management.
• Drive documentation standards to ensure design, code, and content are easily discoverable and reusable.
• Integrate GDS workflows seamlessly into existing product development and Agile processes.
• Understand design tokens and how they map to code
• Familiarity with version control concepts and design system documentation tools.
• Basic understanding of HTML CSS and Component based frameworks (e.g. REACT)
• Knowledge on atomic design methodology and component architecture
• Good understanding of the innovation and client co-creation development lifecycle using human centric design approach and relevant prior experience in collaborative work with design teams, research teams and product development teams.
• Prior knowledge and first-hand experience in user interface (UI) oriented assignments, particularly on fast-emerging touchpoints such as mobiles and tablets as well as the conventional channels such as Web and Host-to-Host
• Good knowledge about the collaborative digital tools for conducting virtual co-creation workshops.
• Excellent analytical, problem solving and lateral thinking skills to manage complex client requirements and conflicting business priorities.

People & Talent

• Build, coach, and mentor a cross-functional partners of designers, engineers, and content specialists contributing to the system.
• Foster a community of practice around design systems across hubs (SG, MY, IN).
• Drive GDS adoption through training, advocacy, and internal showcases.
• Self-driven and highly motivated professional with a strong sense of ownership and a passion towards delivering high-quality client solutions.

Risk Management

• Ensure GDS complies with accessibility, security, and regulatory standards (e.g. WCAG standards).
• Monitor adoption metrics to detect risks of fragmentation or shadow systems.
• Put in place escalation and remediation plans when governance breaches or quality gaps occur.

Governance

• Lead the GDS governance council to align design, tech, and business stakeholders on priorities.
• Define and enforce contribution models, review cycles, and approval processes.
• Report on performance, adoption, and risk indicators to senior leadership.

Regulatory & Business Conduct* 

• Display exemplary conduct and live by the Group’s Values and Code of Conduct.
• Take personal responsibility for embedding the highest standards of ethics, including regulatory and business conduct, across Standard Chartered Bank. This includes understanding and ensuring compliance with, in letter and spirit, all applicable laws, regulations, guidelines and the Group Code of Conduct.
• Effectively and collaboratively identify, escalate, mitigate and resolve risk, conduct and compliance matters.

Key stakeholders

• CXID Leadership Team
• CXID Teams
• Straight2Bank Product Teams
• CIB Design community

Our Ideal Candidate

•    Hands on experience in building enterprise wide design system from initiation to delivery.
•    8 plus years of experience in producing UX and UI design, including interactive prototypes using Figma
•    Experience working at financial institutions, including Fintechs, would be desirable
•    Education equivalent to a Bachelor's in human/computer interaction, web development, computer science, graphic arts/digital design or other equivalent discipline
•    You understand human centred design methodologies and usability testing
•    Working knowledge of enterprise project methodology, and capable of working with product development team to manage business and technical requirements for documentation
•    You also understand global diversity and the ability to advise on solutions that would cater to global audience.
•    You have the ability and desire to keep challenging yourself and others with entrepreneurial attitude and passion for observing human behaviour, identifying team biases and surfacing these with grit.
•    Familiarity with Information architecture and interaction design
•    Experience in Agile and/or LEAN projects
•    Good stakeholder management and influencing skills
•    Strong working knowledge of Microsoft Office

Role Specific Technical Competencies

•    Strong influencing and communication skills – oral, written and presentation
•    Strong understanding of visual elements, including the application of brand standards(Layout, Type, Fonts…)
•    Knowledge of corporate banking concepts 
•    Ability to collaborate with engineers to help and guide them in translating design to code
•    Ability to translate UI design into interactive prototypes

About Standard Chartered

We're an international bank, nimble enough to act, big enough for impact. For more than 170 years, we've worked to make a positive difference for our clients, communities, and each other. We question the status quo, love a challenge and enjoy finding new opportunities to grow and do better than before. If you're looking for a career with purpose and you want to work for a bank making a difference, we want to hear from you. You can count on us to celebrate your unique talents and we can't wait to see the talents you can bring us.

Our purpose, to drive commerce and prosperity through our unique diversity, together with our brand promise, to be here for good are achieved by how we each live our valued behaviours. When you work with us, you'll see how we value difference and advocate inclusion.

Together we:

• Do the right thing and are assertive, challenge one another, and live with integrity, while putting the client at the heart of what we do
• Never settle, continuously striving to improve and innovate, keeping things simple and learning from doing well, and not so well
• Are better together, we can be ourselves, be inclusive, see more good in others, and work collectively to build for the long term

What we offer

In line with our Fair Pay Charter, we offer a competitive salary and benefits to support your mental, physical, financial and social wellbeing.

• Core bank funding for retirement savings, medical and life insurance, with flexible and voluntary benefits available in some locations.
• Time-off including annual leave, parental/maternity (20 weeks), sabbatical (12 months maximum) and volunteering leave (3 days), along with minimum global standards for annual and public holiday, which is combined to 30 days minimum.
• Flexible working options based around home and office locations, with flexible working patterns.
• Proactive wellbeing support through Unmind, a market-leading digital wellbeing platform, development courses for resilience and other human skills, global Employee Assistance Programme, sick leave, mental health first-aiders and all sorts of self-help toolkits
• A continuous learning culture to support your growth, with opportunities to reskill and upskill and access to physical, virtual and digital learning.
• Being part of an inclusive and values driven organisation, one that embraces and celebrates our unique diversity, across our teams, business functions and geographies - everyone feels respected and can realise their full potential.

Recruitment Assessments

Some of our roles use assessments to help us understand how suitable you are for the role you've applied to. If you are invited to take an assessment, this is great news. It means your application has progressed to an important stage of our recruitment process.

Visit our careers website www.sc.com/careers