UX Design Lead

About this role

Location: Budapest, Hungary
Team: Design Systems

About the Role

As VP Designer on the Design Systems Team, you will play a pivotal role in elevating the design maturity across our multi-brand system. Based in Budapest, you'll provide tactical oversight, shape best practices, and strengthen consistency, craftsmanship, and scalability of the design system. You'll work closely with the Design System Lead, the design systems team, product owners, engineering, and brand stakeholders to ensure our design system not only supports but anticipates evolving user and brand needs across our public sites and client facing applications.

What You'll Do

• Tactical Oversight & Quality Assurance

• • Review component design, patterns, and UI artifacts across the design system for consistency, scalability, and technical feasibility.

  • Lead design QA, audits, and system health checks to identify gaps in design maturity.

  • Coach and enforce high standards in visual design, interaction, accessibility, and performance.

• Process & Governance

• • Define and refine workflows, versioning practices, documentation standards, and contribution processes across brands.

  • Establish governance frameworks to manage when/where deviations are allowed, how components evolve, how legacy artifacts are deprecated.

  • Facilitate periodic design review sessions and system alignment workshops.

• Cross-Functional Leadership

• • Collaborate with engineering to ensure design-to-code fidelity and smooth handoffs.

  • Work with product owners and brand teams to anticipate needs, align system roadmap with product roadmap, and ensure the design system enables brand differentiation where needed without sacrificing consistency.

  • Mentor and grow designers in Budapest (and possibly more broadly), building their capability in systems thinking, component design, pattern libraries, and technical collaboration.

• Strategic Evolution & Vision

• • Evaluate current maturity levels in the system: component reuse, documentation, performance, accessibility, theming etc.

  • Drive initiatives to raise maturity: maybe component libraries in code, scalable theming, motion or style polishing, improving accessibility beyond baseline, etc.

  • Keep abreast of design tools, tooling workflows, emerging industry practices (including automation, AI-assisted tools, design tokens, performance metrics) and bring these learnings into the system.

• Measurement & Impact

• • Define and track metrics that demonstrate system usage, adoption, reduction in design/engineering rework, consistency errors, speed of delivery.

  • Use feedback loops, user testing, and stakeholder input to inform improvements.

Who You Are

• A design leader with strong experience in design systems, ideally in multi-brand or multi-product organizations, with track record of elevating design maturity.

• Comfortable both at the tactical level (reviewing UI components, visual consistency, accessibility) and strategic level (defining process, governance, roadmap).

• Skilled in modern design tools (Figma, design token systems, prototyping), with deep understanding of responsive design, theming, performance, accessibility standards (WCAG etc.).

• A good communicator: you can take feedback, present ideas, work with engineering and product teams to ensure designs are practical and well implemented.

• A mentor: you enjoy growing other designers' skills in system thinking, craftsmanship, and collaboration.

• Data & metrics oriented: you believe in measuring impact, using analytics or feedback to drive decisions.

• Passionate about continuous improvement, staying current with design industry trends and emerging tools/techniques.

• You'll be central to lifting our design system to the next level of maturity — your fingerprints will be visible across brands and products.

• You'll work with senior leadership and cross-disciplinary teams, influencing strategy & execution.

• Strong chance to grow your leadership, system architecture, governance, and mentoring skills in a rich, global context.

• Opportunity to work in Budapest with a design-forward culture and on globally recognized brands.

BlackRock's current hybrid work model is designed to enable in-person connections and collaboration that is core to our culture, while supporting increased flexibility for all employees. In line with local health guidance and regulations, employees are required to work at least 4 days in the office each week, with the flexibility to work from home up to 1 day a week.

At BlackRock, we are all connected by one mission: to help more and more people experience financial well-being. Our clients, and the people they serve, are saving for retirement, paying for their children's educations, buying homes and starting businesses. Their investments also help to strengthen the global economy: support businesses small and large; finance infrastructure projects that connect and power cities; and facilitate innovations that drive progress.

This mission would not be possible without our smartest investment – the one we make in our employees. It's why we're dedicated to creating an environment where our colleagues feel welcomed, valued and supported with networks, benefits and development opportunities to help them thrive.

For additional information on BlackRock, please visit  |  | Instagram: @blackrock | Twitter: @blackrock | LinkedIn: 

Our benefits

To help you stay energized, engaged and inspired, we offer a wide range of employee benefits including: retirement investment and tools designed to help you in building a sound financial future; access to education reimbursement; comprehensive resources to support your physical health and emotional well-being; family support programs; and Flexible Time Off (FTO) so you can relax, recharge and be there for the people you care about.

Our hybrid work model

BlackRock's hybrid work model is designed to enable a culture of collaboration and apprenticeship that enriches the experience of our employees, while supporting flexibility for all. Employees are currently required to work at least 4 days in the office per week, with the flexibility to work from home 1 day a week. Some business groups may require more time in the office due to their roles and responsibilities. We remain focused on increasing the impactful moments that arise when we work together in person – aligned with our commitment to performance and innovation. As a new joiner, you can count on this hybrid model to accelerate your learning and onboarding experience here at BlackRock.

About BlackRock

At BlackRock, we are all connected by one mission: to help more and more people experience financial well-being.  Our clients, and the people they serve, are saving for retirement, paying for their children's educations, buying homes and starting businesses. Their investments also help to strengthen the global economy: support businesses small and large; finance infrastructure projects that connect and power cities; and facilitate innovations that drive progress.

This mission would not be possible without our smartest investment – the one we make in our employees. It's why we're dedicated to creating an environment where our colleagues feel welcomed, valued and supported with networks, benefits and development opportunities to help them thrive.

For additional information on BlackRock, please visit @blackrock | Twitter: @blackrock | LinkedIn: 

BlackRock is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer.  We evaluate qualified applicants without regard to age, disability, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation and other protected characteristics at law.