I’ve previously written about the most important skill for a design system product owner. But what are all the other skills?

Behold: a full job description for a design system product owner!

{{ DESIGN SYSTEM NAME }} Product Owner

{{ COMPANY NAME }} is seeking an experienced Product Owner to lead our design system. {{ DESIGN SYSTEM NAME }}’s mission is to “{{ DESIGN SYSTEM MISSION }}.”

Key Responsibilities

• Define and communicate product vision, strategy, and roadmap with stakeholders

• Synthesize customer feedback and research into actionable features

• Align design system vision with organizational objectives

• Manage and prioritize the design system product backlog

• Translate strategic goals into actionable user stories and tasks for the development team

• Serve as the primary liaison between product management, design, and engineering teams

• Stay accessible to engineers to answer questions and provide guidance

• Create communication strategy to drive adoption of the design system across {{ COMPANY NAME }}’s digital products

• Act as design system advocate within the organization

• Measure and communicate the impact and value of {{ DESIGN SYSTEM NAME }}

• Focus on solving real problems for users and the business

• Collaborate closely with design and engineering to create innovative solutions

• Demonstrate customer empathy and deep market knowledge

• Communicate and set expectations with external teams on feature release and roadmap timelines

• Lead by setting clear objectives rather than dictating solutions

• Participate in agile ceremonies

• Partner with tech lead to plan, coordinate and deploy new releases

• Facilitate organizational/culture change and mindset shift for design system adoption

• Utilize analytics to track design system impact and inform KPIs against ongoing investment

• Be passionate about creating great products that delight users

Qualifications & Skills

• 5+ years of experience in product management, preferably with design systems

• Strong communication and collaboration skills

• A deep understanding of user needs and design principles

• The ability to balance short-term needs with long-term vision

• Experience with agile methodologies

The Product Owner will play a crucial role in ensuring that {{ DESIGN SYSTEM NAME }} delivers value by enabling consistency, improving efficiency, and empowering {{ COMPANY NAME }} teams to create exceptional digital experiences.

How does that match up to what your design system product owner expectations are?

What other role descriptions would you like to see next?