Principal Designer, Design Systems

Ibotta is seeking a Principal Designer, Design Systems to join our innovative team and contribute to our mission to Make Every Purchase Rewarding. You will build a design system that lets designers, engineers, and AI agents produce consistent, high-quality product experiences by default. We are looking for a lead designer to set its direction and design it, working alongside a UI designer who builds it in code. The system exists today as a Figma library approaching parity with our products, and is meant to grow into a shared foundation across everything Ibotta builds. The goal is to raise the quality floor without slowing teams down, leaving designers more room to craft the experiences that matter most. Ibotta has a suite of software tools that touch multiple surfaces and users. As we continue to grow and scale our products we need a design system that scales with them and allows for both human and AI agent workflows to use the system.

This position is located in Denver, Colorado as a hybrid position requiring 3 days in office (Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday). Candidates must live in the United States.

Not based in Denver? We will offer a relocation bonus to help make your move to the Mile High City a smooth one.

What you will be doing:

• Own the system's direction. Decide what to keep, change, or retire based on what builders and customers need, and hold the line on craft as the system grows. Own the roadmap, contribution model, versioning, release process, and documentation.

• Design the foundations and components, covering the states beyond the happy path (empty, loading, error), with accessibility and motion built in from the start

• Define the governance model for how components are proposed, reviewed, accepted, and deprecated.

• Partner with the UI Designer and with engineering so the system lives in code, not only in design files. Design nuance lives in the code as much as in the visuals, so stay close to both without owning the implementation.

• Earn adoption. Help product teams move onto the system, teach through examples, and keep releases predictable with clear versioning, deprecation paths, and notice before breaking changes.

• Define and measure quality. Set up repeatable evaluations on real tasks to see whether builders ship better work faster, with less rework. Work with content design so the system carries language as well as components.

• Make design judgment usable by people and agents. Translate principles into reusable patterns, reference examples, and guidance that let designers, product managers, engineers, and AI agents build products that align to a single design language.

• Lead research with the people who use the system. Talk to internal designers, engineers, and PMs, watch how they build, and turn recurring questions and workarounds into improvements.

• Embrace and uphold Ibotta's Core Values: Integrity, Boldness, Ownership, Teamwork, Transparency, and A Good Idea Can Come from Anywhere

What we are looking for:

• 10+ years of design experience, including owning a design system at a company with more than one product surface

• Bachelor's degree in Design, HCI, Computer Science, or equivalent practical experience

• Evidence of adoption, not just creation. We want to hear how you got teams to use what you built

• Deep Figma skills, including variables, component architecture, and library management at scale

• Working fluency with front-end code, enough to partner credibly on implementation and to judge whether what shipped matches what was designed

• Familiarity with collaboration and documentation tools (e.g., Jira, Confluence) and AI tooling

• Experience defining governance and contribution models that survive without constant enforcement

• Comfort owning a capability outright, setting direction rather than waiting for it, and partnering with designers, researchers and product managers on roadmaps.

About Ibotta ("I bought a...")

Ibotta (NYSE: IBTA) is a leading performance marketing platform allowing brands to deliver digital promotions to over 200 million consumers through a network of publishers called the Ibotta Performance Network (IPN). The IPN allows marketers to influence what people buy, and where and how often they shop – all while paying only when their campaigns directly result in a sale. American shoppers have earned over $2.6 billion through the IPN since 2012. The largest tech IPO in history to come out of Colorado, Ibotta is headquartered in Denver, and is continually listed as a top place to work by The Denver Post and Inc. Magazine.

To learn more about what our Tech teams are doing day to day, visit Building Ibotta on Medium.com

Additional Details:

• This position is located in Denver, CO, and includes competitive pay, flexible time off, benefits package (including medical, dental, vision), Employee Stock Purchase Program, and 401k match. Denver office perks include paid parking, snacks, and occasional meals.

• Base compensation range: $185,000 - $205,000 Equity is included in the overall compensation package. This compensation range is specific to the United States labor market and may be adjusted based on actual experience.

• Ibotta is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Ibotta's employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, marital status, ancestry, physical or mental disability, veteran status, gender identity, sexual orientation, or any other legally protected status.

• Applicants must be currently authorized to work in the United States on a full-time basis.

• Applicants are accepted until the position is filled.

• For the security of our employees and the business, all employees are responsible for the secure handling of data in accordance with our security policies, identifying and reporting phishing attempts, as well as reporting security incidents to the proper channels.

Recruiting Agency Notice

Ibotta does not accept agency resumes and is not responsible for any fees related to unsolicited resumes. Please do not forward resumes to any Ibot