Resume

I am a hybrid product designer and front-end engineer specializing in design systems design, development, and management — helping designers and developers build SaaS products at scale from small startups to large corporations.

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Recent Experience

Senior Design Systems Designer at Pluto TV

Aug 2023 — Now

Primary designer and contributor to Nitro Design System, supporting the design team in crafting the Pluto TV experience on Smart TV devices, mobile, tablet, and web.
Created a design token system for our component libraries using Figma Token Studio to communicate and document design decisions to the design and engineering teams.

Senior Product Designer, Design Systems at Cisco

May 2023 — Sep 2023

Design contributor to the Magnetic Design System — including end-to-end component design and documentation.
Contributed a complex tab navigation system utilized by designers for prototyping their designs.

Senior User Interface Designer, Design Systems at City National Bank

Nov 2022 — Mar 2023

Lead designer and contributor to the Roxbury Design System — oversaw direction and support of the design system utilized by several teams within City National Bank to efficiently build its suite of products.
Researched internal products to find opportunities to leverage the design system to boost designer and engineer productivity.
Improved the color system documentation with a focus on accessibility to be more inclusive of our users.

Senior Design Technologist at First American

Mar 2021 — Nov 2022

Primary maintainer and contributor to the Ignite Design System for the Ignite application suite — including oversight and support of direction and processes of the design system.
Contributed design token, pattern, component, (Angular) front-end production code, and documentation to the design system's UI kit, component library, and Storybook.
Established design and coding best practices for product design and engineering teams to help scale design and increase velocity for business initiatives.
Promotion of design systems, systems design thinking, and tool support for designers and engineers.
Created a new color system with more hue variations for flexible pairings that better meet WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility contrast standards.
Created a design token system structure to better support the component library and applications.
Invented methodologies for automating front-end component packaging to enhance efficiency.
Converted the Ignite Design System Sketch UI kit to a Figma library UI kit and supported new Figma designers in the Sketch-to-Figma migration.

Senior UI Developer at Boulevard

Sep 2019 — Feb 2021

Created Boulevard's design system — BLVD UI, including a Figma UI kit, React component library, and encompassing design and technical documentation.
Developed a design systems-driven design & development integration process for end-to-end design and development.
Designed a documentation website to provide guides and examples on how to utilize Boulevard's APIs.
Established a design token system portable to CSS and Javascript.

UX/UI Engineer at Brainbase

Oct 2018 — Sep 2019

Inherited a complex front-end codebase with technical debt and laid the foundation for a framework with reusable and scalable components built in Angular, Sass, and Bootstrap to better scale our code productivity.

Product Designer at Taboola

Oct 2016 — Feb 2018

Led product design on Taboola's publisher-focused analytics dashboard, Taboola Newsroom — assisting editorial teams at well-known publications such as Oath/AOL, NBC, and New York Daily News by surfacing actionable data including performance insights, metrics, and recommendations on the publishers' articles in real-time.

Product Designer at Fullscreen Media

Oct 2015 — Jun 2016

Designed and launched Fullscreen's video platform bringing original Fullscreen and licensed content catering to young adults.
Redesigned Fullscreen Go from the ground up, a semi-automated online application that allows YouTube creators to apply and formally partner with Fullscreen in minutes.

Front-End Engineer at Fullscreen Media

Dec 2013 — Oct 2015

Led efforts on Fullscreen's Ruby on Rails component library and style guide for their web-based products including Creator Platform and Fullscreen video platform.
Bridged efforts between product design and engineering teams as a liaison to help bridge communication and collaboration.

UX/UI Designer at Fullscreen Media

Sep 2012 — Dec 2013

Defined, designed, and built Fullscreen's internal tools utilized to manage content creators and contracts.

Education

University of Central Florida

Aug 2003 — Feb 2005

Digital Media, concentration in Interactive Media Design (did not complete degree requirements).

Associate of Arts at Tallahassee Community College

Jan 2002 — Jul 2003

Major in General Studies

Skills

Expertise

Design Systems
Systems Thinking
Systems-Driven Design & Development
Design Token Management
Product Design
Accessibility
Iconography
Prototyping

Tools and Technologies

Figma
Figma Token Studio
Sass & CSS
CSS-in-JS
React
Storybook
Style Dictionary
Angular
TypeScript
JavaScript
Git

See my resume

View or download my resume.
You can also find me on LinkedIn.

Drop me a line

Please feel free to contact me regarding consulting inquires, or just to say hello.

me@chrisgriffin.org