Lead Specialist, UX Designer

This role aligns to industry-level titles such as “Lead Visual Designer ” or “Staff Visual Designer”  

Reports to: Group Visual Design Manager, Design Systems 

About Pearson 

Pearson is an ed tech company whose mission is to have a direct relationship with millions of lifelong learners. As the world’s learning company with more than 18,000 employees operating in 70 countries, we provide content, assessment, and digital services to learners, educational institutions, employers, governments and other partners globally. We are committed to helping equip learners with the skills they need to enhance their world of opportunities. We believe that wherever learning flourishes so do people. 

The Role 

Pearson is reimagining education for the AI era, and we need an exceptional visual design leader to help shape that transformation. As a Lead Visual Designer on the Design Systems team, you'll serve as the senior design voice establishing the visual foundation for Pearson's unified design system across our Higher Education product portfolio. This is a high-impact role where your design decisions will cascade across dozens of product teams and influence the experience of millions of learners and educators. 

In this role, you'll own the end-to-end visual design quality for our design system—from defining foundational design tokens and component specifications to establishing the visual language that makes our products feel cohesive, modern, and competitive in an AI-native education landscape. You'll work at both strategic and tactical levels: setting the creative direction for how our design system evolves while also designing production-ready components and templates that product teams can implement with confidence. 

Beyond craft execution, you'll be a design leader within the team. You'll facilitate design critiques, mentor other designers, influence cross-functional partners through the strength of your work and communication, and represent design thinking in discussions with product management and engineering leadership. This isn't about executing within constraints—it's about defining what excellence looks like and building the design infrastructure that makes it achievable at scale. 

If you're a senior designer who combines exceptional visual craft with systems thinking, collaborative leadership, and the ability to navigate complex organizational dynamics, this role offers the creative challenge and strategic influence you're ready for. 

What You'll Own 

You'll own the end-to-end visual design quality for our design system—from defining foundational design tokens and component specifications to establishing the visual language that makes our products feel cohesive, modern, and competitive. You'll work at both strategic and tactical levels while serving as a design leader within the team. 

Define and evolve the visual design language for our unified design system, establishing standards for typography, color, iconography, spacing, layout, and motion that work seamlessly across web and mobile platforms 

Design comprehensive, production-ready component libraries in Figma—from foundational atoms to complex organisms—ensuring each component is accessible, flexible, and documented for implementation 

Lead the visual design direction for major product redesigns, creating high-fidelity reference screens and templates for student and instructor experiences in our next-generation agentic learning platform 

Work closely with Creative Technologists to translate your visual designs into code (I.E. React components in Storybook), conducting visual QA and creating detailed motion specifications with timing, easing, and state transition behaviors 

Lead design critiques for the team, mentor other designers, and build influential relationships with product management, engineering leadership, and key stakeholders across Pearson, advocating for design quality through clear communication and compelling rationale 

Imagine the next generation of interaction patterns and contexts like voice user interfaces and multi-modal interactions (AR/VR) that support our product vision well into the future 

About You 

You're a senior designer who combines exceptional visual craft with systems thinking, collaborative leadership, and the ability to navigate complex organizational dynamics. You lead through influence rather than authority, building trust by demonstrating design value, showing respect for constraints, and finding collaborative solutions to complex problems. 

7-10 years of visual design experience with a portfolio that demonstrates exceptional craft in UI design, component-based design systems, and end-to-end product experiences across web and mobile platforms 

Deep, expert-level proficiency in Figma, including advanced component architecture, library management, and design token systems—you know how to structure Figma files for enterprise-scale collaboration and long-term maintainability 

Strong skills in motion design for product interfaces, with proficiency in After Effects, and/or Framer, and/or Principle (or similar tools) to communicate animation, timing, easing curves, and interaction behaviors 

Proven experience designing, building, or contributing to design systems at scale—you understand the full lifecycle and can identify when to enforce consistency versus allow flexibility, balancing design quality with engineering feasibility 

High ownership and effective communication across diverse audiences, from detailed critique sessions with designers to strategic discussions with executives, with strong judgment about when to maintain system consistency versus advocate for exceptions 

What You'll Get 

This is a defining moment for Pearson. You'll have significant latitude to define what visual excellence means for our products—this isn't a role where you execute someone else's vision. You'll be the senior design voice establishing creative direction, proposing new approaches, and shaping how design systems thinking evolves within the organization. 

Strategic Design Impact: Your work will establish the visual and interaction standards for dozens of products and influence the daily experience of millions of users as we build the design infrastructure that will determine our competitive position in an AI-native education landscape 

Career-Defining Growth: Deepen your expertise in design systems leadership at enterprise scale, working on problems that challenge your craft, strategic thinking, and leadership capabilities 

Creative Ownership: Define creative direction and shape Pearson's visual evolution with lasting influence—your designs will become the reference standard that other teams build from, giving your work genuine strategic consequence 

Collaborative Environment: Work alongside talented Creative Technologists, UX Designers, and Visual Designers who share your commitment to craft, with regular opportunities for design critique, knowledge sharing, and problem-solving with product teams hungry for design leadership 

Ready to make an Impact? 

If you're a senior visual designer who leads through craft excellence, thinks systematically, and wants to shape the future of educational technology, we'd love to hear from you. Apply now and help us build the design foundation for the next generation of learning. 

Apply now and help shape the future of learning. 

Compensation at Pearson is influenced by a wide array of factors including but not limited to skill set, level of experience, and specific location. As required by the California, Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York State, New York City, Vermont, Washington State, and Washington DC laws, the pay range for this position is as follows:    

The minimum full-time salary range is between $130,000 - $155,000.  

This position is eligible to participate in an annual incentive program, and information on benefits offered is here.  

Applications will be accepted through 19th February . This window may be extended depending on business needs.