ServiceNow
Direct SmartRecruiters career site

Principal Design Technologist, Design Systems & Applied AI

Pay
$221,200 – $387,100 per year
Location
Santa Clara, CA
Listed
20 days ago

About the role

Team & Role This role is part of our Product Design team, which turns a deep understanding of our users and customers into product experiences they love. Our designers bring expertise across design systems, visual design, interaction design, content design, and product design. At ServiceNow, design has an intentional seat at the table, and we partner with engineering and product management from the outset.

The Design Systems team creates the shared foundations that help ServiceNow teams deliver consistent, accessible, and high-quality product experiences. As Platform and the business units adopt AI-assisted ways of working, designers and front-end engineers need clear standards, practical examples, and reliable ways to check that those standards are being applied.

We're looking for a Principal Design Technologist to make design-system standards easier to understand, test, and implement. This role translates design-system standards and design files into clear specifications, design-owned coded reference components, validation tools, and implementation guidance. These resources show how an experience should look and behave before Engineering builds and maintains the production implementation.

Across Design, this principal individual contributor will use deep design and web-development expertise to create coded explorations that demonstrate the intended experience, behavior, and quality of components and AI-enabled interactions. They will mentor product designers who use code to explore and communicate experience concepts and contribute practical insight to the development and adoption of AI-assisted design tools.

The role leads through expertise and influence. Product and Engineering retain ownership of product strategy, technical architecture, production code, roadmaps, and delivery. What you get to do in this role: Work with Product Design, Product Management, and Engineering to set the direction for design-system tools and practices that improve quality and adoption across Platform and the business units.

Create and maintain design-owned coded UI reference libraries based on design-system standards and source designs, including Figma where applicable. Use them to demonstrate component states, interactions, responsive behavior, accessibility expectations, and use of design tokens. Engineering owns the production of component libraries and their technical implementation.

Evaluate and create AI-assisted tools that help teams find, apply, and check design-system guidance. Define practical ways to assess whether the tools are accurate, useful, understandable, and aligned with approved standards. Partner with front-end engineering teams to identify recurring differences between approved designs and delivered experiences.

Create design-side review and validation methods that surface issues earlier, and use what teams learn during implementation to improve shared standards, reference components, and guidance.

Lead the adoption of AI tools across Design by evaluating emerging tools, setting responsible working practices, and providing playbooks, demonstrations, workshops, and peer learning that help designers improve quality and work more efficiently. Mentor and connect product designers who use code to prototype AI experiences.

Establish shared working practices, align their explorations with the design system, and turn useful lessons into reusable guidance for the broader design organization.

Collaborate with Product Management and Engineering on the contribution process that enables experts across Design, Engineering, Product, Accessibility, Platform, and the business units to propose, review, and maintain design-system guidance and reference materials. Partner with Design Enablement and Engineering Operations to help front-end UI engineers use the design system effectively.

Contribute design-system onboarding, training, implementation guidance, reference examples, and validation practices, while Engineering Operations leads engineering processes and adoption within the front-end community.

Preferred Qualifications

12+ years of experience in product design, design systems, design technology, prototyping, or a related discipline within complex, enterprise-scale products. A portfolio or body of work demonstrating strong systems thinking, interaction and visual craft, and the ability to turn design standards into reusable guidance, reference components, and tools.

Hands-on experience with modern UI frameworks such as Lit and Web Components, with the ability to build coded prototypes and design-owned reference components that clearly demonstrate intended appearance and behavior. Deep knowledge of design systems, including components, patterns, design tokens, themes, accessibility, responsive behavior, localization, governance, and contribution processes.

Experience using AI to improve design work, such as helping teams find guidance, create and review design-system content, check quality, or automate repeatable tasks. Experience defining appropriate human review and responsible-use practices. Experience using or extending design tools such as Figma, documentation platforms, component catalogs, analytics, plugins, or automated design-quality and accessibility checks.

Demonstrated success setting direction and influencing senior partners across Design, Product, Engineering, Accessibility, and AI in a complex, distributed organization. Excellent communication, facilitation, storytelling, critique, and mentoring skills, with a record of helping a broad design organization adopt AI tools, shared standards, and new ways of working.

Pay and benefits

Experience contributing throughout the product development process for web or software products. Experience in user experience design, product design, design systems, design technology, prototyping, or related field. Experience working with cross-functional teams across Product, Design, Accessibility, and Engineering.

For positions in this location, we offer a base pay of $221,200 - $387,100, plus equity (when applicable), variable/incentive compensation and benefits. Sales positions generally offer a competitive On Target Earnings (OTE) incentive compensation structure.

Please note that the base pay shown is a guideline, and individual total compensation will vary based on factors such as qualifications, skill level, competencies, and work location. We also offer health plans, including flexible spending accounts, a 401(k) Plan with company match, ESPP, matching donations, a flexible time away plan and family leave programs.

Compensation is based on the geographic location in which the role is located and is subject to change based on work location.

Additional Information

Work Personas We approach our distributed world of work with flexibility and trust. Work personas (flexible, remote, or required in office) are categories that are assigned to ServiceNow employees depending on the nature of their work and their assigned work location. Learn more here.

To determine eligibility for a work persona, ServiceNow may confirm the distance between your primary residence and the closest ServiceNow office using a third-party service. Accommodations We strive to create an accessible and inclusive experience for all candidates.

Export Control Regulations For positions requiring access to controlled technology subject to export control regulations, including the U.S. Export Administration Regulations (EAR), ServiceNow may be required to obtain export control approval from government authorities for certain individuals.

All employment is contingent upon ServiceNow obtaining any export license or other approval that may be required by relevant export control authorities. From Fortune. ©2026 Fortune Media IP Limited. All rights reserved. Used under license.

About the Company

It all started when engineer Fred Luddy wrote code that automated a tedious task for his coworker, Phyllis. She cried tears of joy. That moment inspired Fred to build a company that could do that for everyone-freeing people from busywork so they could focus on meaningful work. Today, ServiceNow is the AI control tower for business reinvention.

Our ServiceNow AI platform brings together any AI, any data, and any workflow- helping 85% of the Fortune 500® work smarter, faster, and better. We're building an AI-native culture where technology and talent are unstoppable together. And we're just getting started. Join us to put AI to work for people.

Read the original posting

From ServiceNow's careers page, first listed on Rolev.ai on October 21, 2026. Rolev.ai is not the employer.

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Common questions

What is the salary for the Principal Design Technologist, Design Systems & Applied AI role at ServiceNow?

The Principal Design Technologist, Design Systems & Applied AI posting at ServiceNow states compensation of $221,200 – $387,100 per year. Final pay may depend on location, experience, and interview evaluation on ServiceNow's official career site.

Where is the Principal Design Technologist, Design Systems & Applied AI job at ServiceNow located?

This Principal Design Technologist, Design Systems & Applied AI position at ServiceNow is located in Santa Clara, CA. Always check ServiceNow's application page for specific state eligibility or relocation policies.

How do I apply for the Principal Design Technologist, Design Systems & Applied AI position at ServiceNow?

This listing links directly to ServiceNow's SmartRecruiters application page. You can apply directly on ServiceNow's site, or use Rolev.ai to check your resume fit, generate a zero-hallucination tailored resume and cover letter for this posting, and autofill the SmartRecruiters application form in 1 click with the Rolev.ai Chrome extension. You always review the form and press Submit yourself.