Foundations Designer, Design Systems at Kayak

KAYAK, part of Booking Holdings (NASDAQ: BKNG), is a leading travel search engine. With billions of queries across our platforms, we help people find their perfect flight, stay, rental car and vacation package. We’re also transforming business travel with a new corporate travel solution, KAYAK for Business. As an employee of KAYAK, you will be part of a travel company that operates a portfolio of global metasearch brands including momondo, Cheapflights and HotelsCombined, among others. From start-up to industry leader, innovation is at our core and every employee has an opportunity to make their mark. Our focus is on building the best travel search engine to make it easier for everyone to experience the world. KAYAK is looking for a Foundations Designer to join our Design Language and Systems team. The work is foundational: icons, illustrations, motion, tokens. The assets and patterns that make our products feel consistent across platforms and brands, and that actually ship into production. This isn't a role where you'll be designing screens or running research. It's about building systems that other designers use. You'll work closely with our Design Systems leads in Boston, Berlin and Copenhagen, and collaborate with product designers, engineers, and brand partners across the company. If you think in systems, care about how design becomes code, and want to shape how a product feels at scale, this is the job. This role requires you to commute to our Berlin office three times a week. IN THIS ROLE, YOU WILL: - Design and maintain visual asset systems (icons, illustrations, supporting assets) across KAYAK's brand portfolio, with clear naming, variants, and usage guidance. - Contribute to our motion language, including interaction patterns, timing principles, and reduced-motion considerations. Translate motion direction into specs that engineers can implement. - Support the definition and management of design tokens (color, typography, spacing, radius, motion) across brands like KAYAK and momondo, and across web, iOS, and Android. - Partner with engineering to keep design foundations aligned with production, identifying drift between Figma and code and working to close gaps systematically. - Build and maintain Figma libraries using best practices for components, properties, variables, and documentation, structuring them for scalability, adoption, and AI-assisted workflows. - Work with product pods and embedded designers on contribution models, creating clear paths for adoption, feedback, and iteration so the system improves through use. - Use AI tools to accelerate exploration, reduce repetitive work, and improve how assets move from design to implementation. We expect you to actively build and refine these workflows. PLEASE APPLY IF YOU HAVE: - 3+ years of experience in a product design organization. - Experience building and shipping scalable icon or illustration systems. Not just designing assets, but owning the system around them. - Experience contributing to or owning motion systems, including reusable patterns and reduced-motion guidance. - Strong Figma proficiency, including components, properties, variables, and library architecture that other designers can actually use at scale. - A working understanding of design tokens and how they map to code and component APIs. Not conceptually. In practice. - Hands-on experience using AI tools to optimize design processes and workflows. - Comfort collaborating with engineers and front-end workflows like Storybook, GitHub, and component documentation. - A self-driven, autonomous approach. You can pick up work from a roadmap and run with it without needing everything scoped in advance. - A proactive and inquisitive mindset. You ask questions, spot gaps, and propose solutions rather than waiting for direction. THIS ROLE IS NOT: - A brand or campaign design role. The work is systematic and production-focused. - A junior role. We need someone who has already shipped systems. - A UX/UI, or research role. BENEFITS AND PERKS: - 6 weeks of paid vacation - Work from (almost) anywhere for up to 20 days per year - Focus on mental health and well-being: - Company-paid therapy sessions through SpringHealth - Company-paid subscription to HeadSpace - Company-wide week off a year - the whole team fully recharges (and returns without a pile-up of work!) - No meeting Fridays - Paid parental leave - Paid volunteer time - Focus on your career growth: - Development Dollars - Leadership development - Access to thousands of on-demand e-learnings - Travel Discounts - Employee Resource Groups - Free lunch 2 days per week - Pension plan contributions - Public transportation subsidies - Bike leasing program - Monthly social events, massages, Thursday happy hours, sports teams - An awesome office in Friedrichshain, Berlin INCLUSION At KAYAK, we want everyone to have the space to grow, share ideas and do great work. That’s why we’re focused on hiring the best talent from all walks of life and experiences, supporting them well and making sure no one feels like they have to fit a mold to belong here. Need any adjustments for the interview, application or on the job? No problem - just give us a heads-up. We’ve got you. #LI-AS1