Design System Architect, Product Design

About Marex

Marex Group plc (NASDAQ: MRX) is a diversified global financial services platform providing essential liquidity, market access and infrastructure services to clients across energy, commodities and financial markets. The group provides comprehensive breadth and depth of coverage across four core services: clearing, agency and execution, market making, and hedging and investment solutions. It has a leading franchise in many major metals, energy and agricultural products, with access to 60 exchanges. The group provides access to the world’s major commodity markets, covering a broad range of clients that include some of the largest commodity producers, consumers and traders, banks, hedge funds and asset managers. With more than 40 offices worldwide, the group has over 2,300 employees across Europe, Asia and the Americas.

For more information visit https://www.marex.com/

Position Reference: VN2627

Department description

Marex operates across global financial markets with significant presence both on and off exchange. The firm provides clients with market access, execution, clearing, risk management, data and analytics.

The Technology division delivers scalable and secure systems across the business. Teams work in agile streams aligned to business areas, supported by architecture, infrastructure, security and design. The Design function spans Product Design, Design Engineering, Brand and Digital. The team operates on an infrastructure-first model — building the platform that lets the wider organisation produce quality output at scale. Within Technology, Design Engineering maintains the Marex Design System as a production-grade engineering artefact, while the Design Systems Architect owns the architecture and standards that govern it.

Role Summary

The Design Systems Architect is responsible for defining what the Marex Design System is — its architecture, token structure, component taxonomy, and the way it is built so that both humans and AI can consume it correctly. Most design systems are built for designers and developers. The Marex Design System needs to work for a third consumer: AI. This role owns the structural and semantic foundation that makes that possible, ensuring the system can be reasoned about, assembled, and extended by both people and machines.

The role requires deep design systems expertise, genuine technical fluency, and the ability to work credibly across design and engineering teams. Figma is the current primary tool, but the system must be architected so it is not dependent on any single tool — tokens, structure, and component logic should exist independently, with Figma as the human-readable layer for now. The Design Systems Architect works in close collaboration with Design Engineering, who own the engineering artefacts of MDS. The boundary is clear: this role decides what the system is and how it is structured; Design Engineering decides how it is built and shipped.

Responsibilities

Role specific:

• Design System Architecture
• Own the architecture of the Marex Design System — token structure, component taxonomy,
• naming conventions, and modularity model — designed to be consumed by humans, engineers, and AI tooling equally.
• Design the token system: semantic layers, theming model, light/dark pairing, typography scales, grid and spacing — structured so they exist independently of any single tool.
• Define component anatomy: what each component is, what variants it has, what props it exposes, and how it is documented — with AI consumption in mind from the start.
• Architect the Figma system: library structure, variable-to-token mapping, component construction — modular, consistent, and machine-legible.
• AI Consumption and Governance
• Define the AI consumption model for the system: prompt guardrails, component constraints, and the rules that allow AI to generate on-system output reliably.
• Own design system governance in collaboration with Design Engineering and Product Design: contribution standards, component creation criteria, and how the system evolves without fragmenting.
• Maintain the documentation layer that makes the system genuinely usable — not just a component library, but a system people understand how to extend.
• Ensure AI-generated output meets system standards — build constraints rather than open-ended flexibility.
• Work with Design Engineering on code connect, token sync, and the Figma-to-production pipeline — you own the design architecture side of that boundary.

All staff:

• Ensure compliance with the company’s regulatory requirements under the FCA.
• Adhere to the operational risk framework for your role ensuring that all regulatory or company determined parameters are complied with.
• Role model for demonstrating highest level standards of integrity and conduct and reflecting Company Values.
• At all times comply with the FCA’s Code of Conduct.
• Ensure that you are fully aware of and adhere to internal policies that relate to you, your role or any other activities for which you have any level of responsibility.
• Report any breaches of policy to Compliance and/ or your supervisor as required.
• Escalate risk events immediately.
• Provide input to risk management processes, as required.

Competencies, Skills, Experience & Qualifications:

• Deep experience owning or significantly shaping a design system in a complex product environment — you have made the hard decisions about token structure, component scope, and governance.
• Strong Figma proficiency at a systems level — variables, component architecture, library structure, auto-layout — not just the ability to use it but the ability to architect it.
• A genuine understanding of how AI consumes design systems — you have thought seriously about what modular, machine-legible component structure means in practice.
• Sufficient technical fluency to work credibly with engineers on token pipelines, code connect, and the design-to-code boundary — you do not need to write the production code but you need to understand what you are handing to the people who do.
• Design sensibility that goes beyond systems thinking — you make good visual and UX judgement calls, and the system you build reflects that, not just technical correctness.
• The instinct to build constraints rather than infinite flexibility — you understand that a system that can do anything produces inconsistency, and a well-governed system produces quality.
• Comfortable with ambiguity at the frontier — AI-first design systems are not a solved problem, you are figuring this out as you go, and that energises rather than unsettles you.
• Experience in financial services, regulated industries, or complex B2B enterprise environments is a real advantage.
• Solid understanding of financial markets or financial services environments, or a demonstrated ability to quickly absorb complex financial concepts.

Conduct Rules, You must:

• Act with integrity
• Act with due skill, care and diligence
• Be open and cooperative with the FCA, the PRA and other regulators
• Pay due regard to the interests of customers and treat them fairly
• Observe proper standard of market conduct
• Act to deliver good outcomes for retail customers

Company Values

Acting as a role model for the values of the Company:

Respect - Clients are at the heart of our business, with superior execution and superb client service the foundation of the firm. We respect our clients and always treat them fairly.

Integrity - Doing business the right way is the only way. We hold ourselves to a high ethical standard in everything we do – our clients expect this and we demand it of ourselves.

Collaborative - We work in teams - open and direct communication and the willingness to work hard and collaboratively are the basis for effective teamwork. Working well with others is necessary for us to succeed at what we do.

Developing our People - Our people are the basis of our competitive advantage. We look to “grow our own” and make Marex the place ambitious, hardworking, talented people choose to build their careers.

Adaptable and Nimble - Our size and flexibility is an advantage. We are big enough to support our client’s various needs, and adaptable and nimble enough to respond quickly to changing conditions or requirements. A non-bureaucratic, but well controlled environment fosters initiative as well as employee satisfaction.

Marex is fully committed to being an inclusive employer and providing an inclusive and accessible recruitment process for all. We will provide reasonable adjustments to remove any disadvantage to you being considered for this role. We value the differences that a diverse workforce brings to the company. We welcome applications from candidates returning to the workforce. Also, Marex is committed to avoiding circumstances in which the appearance or possibility of conflicts of interest may exist within the hiring process.

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