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The Design Foundations team brings together Nexus — our multi-brand design platform and system — alongside Content Design and GenAI Design to shape how design, engineering, and product scale across a complex, distributed organization. We are looking for an experienced design leader to guide this critical area and help define the future foundations that enable teams to move faster while delivering cohesive, high-quality experiences. This is not a traditional design system leadership role focused solely on components or visual consistency. Nexus is a strategic platform that accelerates product development, improves experience quality, and aligns multiple brands and teams around shared principles, tools, and standards. Combined with Content Design and GenAI design capabilities, the Foundations team plays a central role in defining how we build, communicate, and innovate at scale.

You will operate at the intersection of design, engineering, and product leadership — shaping governance models, defining operating frameworks, and driving adoption strategies that empower teams while maintaining coherence across the ecosystem. Success in this role requires strong organizational leadership, a platform mindset, and the ability to align diverse stakeholders around a shared vision for scalable design foundations.

Please note that this role is based in The Netherlands. Remote work within The Netherlands is possible; however, you must be based in and legally eligible to work here. Remote work from outside The Netherlands is not possible.

What you will do
- Lead Nexus as a strategic design platform
- Define and evolve the vision, strategy, and roadmap for Nexus as shared UX infrastructure.
- Treat the design system as an internal product with clear users, priorities, and measurable outcomes.
- Balance consistency, flexibility, and scalability across multiple brands and product areas.

- Lead and grow a team of designers
- Lead, mentor, and develop a team of designers focused on building and evolving Nexus.
- Set a high bar for design quality, systems thinking, and collaboration with engineering.
- Create clarity of roles, priorities, and ways of working within the team.
- Foster a strong culture of ownership, experimentation, and continuous improvement.
- Ensure the team operates with a platform mindset, focused on adoption, scalability, and impact.

- Establish governance and operating models
- Define ownership models, contribution workflows, and decision-making frameworks.
- Create predictable processes that enable distributed teams to contribute and adopt Nexus effectively.
- Build governance structures that scale without slowing teams down.

- Drive deep partnership with engineering
- Partner closely with engineering leadership to align on architecture, tooling, and delivery workflows.
- Ensure Nexus integrates seamlessly into development pipelines and supports engineering velocity.
- Advocate for platform thinking and shared infrastructure across design and engineering.

- Enable organizational alignment and adoption
- Engage designers, engineers, and product teams as active participants in shaping Nexus.
- Build strong internal communities and contribution models.
- Drive adoption through clear value, usability, and collaboration rather than mandate.

- Accelerate product delivery and quality
- Enable faster development through reusable foundations, tokens, components, and patterns.
- Improve design quality and consistency without creating rigidity.
- Measure and demonstrate the impact of Nexus on speed, scalability, and user experience.

- Lead through influence
- Align senior stakeholders across design, engineering, and product leadership.
- Operate effectively in ambiguity, creating clarity and direction where needed.
- Champion platform thinking and elevate design as a strategic partner.

What we’re looking for
- Proven experience building and scaling design platforms
- Experience leading the creation and evolution of design systems or design platforms in complex organizations.
- Experience supporting multiple brands, products, or distributed teams.
- Strong governance mindset — ownership models, contribution flows, and decision frameworks.

- Strong engineering partnership
- Deep collaboration with engineering teams on platform initiatives.
- Understanding of technical implementation (tokens, versioning, component architecture, release processes).
- Ability to speak both design and engineering languages.

- Organizational leadership and influence
- Proven ability to align diverse stakeholders without formal authority.
- Experience driving adoption and organizational change at scale.
- Comfort operating in ambiguity and defining structure where none exists.

- Pragmatic systems thinking
- Balances consistency with flexibility.
- Optimizes for adoption and velocity rather than perfection.
- Understands trade-offs required to scale effectively.

What can we offer you
- The chance to shape a strategic area of OLX’s customer experience with a talented, ambitious team.
- A strong international community of designers and design leaders to learn from and collaborate with.
- Space to grow your strategic and leadership skills while staying close to the craft.
- Competitive salary and comprehensive benefits (including health insurance, bonus scheme, and more).
- Learning & Development budget and structured growth support.
- Flexibility in how and where you work.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at OLX
OLX values diversity and welcomes applicants of all races, ethnicities, disabilities, ages, genders, sexual orientations, religions, backgrounds, and experiences to apply. If this role excites you, we encourage you to apply, even if you don’t meet all the requirements - you may be just the right fit for this or other opportunities with us!

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Head of Product Design - Design Foundations

OLX