Visual Designer, Design Systems

KAYAK, part of Booking Holdings (NASDAQ: BKNG), is the world’s 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 Visual Designer to join our Design Language and Systems team and help build the foundations that make our products feel consistent, polished, and ready for implementation. This role works directly with Design Systems leads, design directors, and product designers across the company.

The work involves creating and maintaining the core building blocks of our visual system: icons, illustrations, motion foundations, and Figma components, and making sure they translate cleanly into tokens and code.

We're investing in AI tools to take repetitive work off designers' plates and speed up how we explore ideas. This role makes that shift possible. With libraries that are well-organized, validated, and structured for reuse, designers spend less time redrawing screens and more time solving the problems that actually matter.

This role requires you to commute to our Berlin office three times a week.

In this role, you will:

• Create and systematize visual foundations (icons, spot illustrations, and supporting assets) aligned with KAYAK's design language and brand.

• Manage how assets are structured in the design system, including naming, variants, usage guidance, and documentation, working with product pods and embedded designers to ensure patterns are applied consistently and improved through feedback.

• Build and maintain Figma libraries using best practices for components, properties, variables, and architecture, structuring them for scalability, easy adoption, and faster prototyping through AI-assisted exploration.

• Support the definition and management of design tokens for color, typography, spacing, radius, and motion across brands and platforms.

• Translate motion language into reusable guidance alongside motion leadership, including interaction patterns and reduced-motion considerations.

• Partner with engineering to keep foundations implementation-ready and aligned with production, reducing drift between design and code.

Please apply if you have:

• 3+ years of experience in product design, visual design, or design systems work.

• Strong Figma proficiency, including components, properties, variables, libraries, and documentation.

• Experience designing and maintaining scalable icon systems, and ideally illustration systems.

• Motion design experience, or strong interest, including reusable motion patterns and reduced-motion guidance.

• A working understanding of design tokens and how they map to code and component APIs.

• A keen interest in working with AI and AI-assisted tools and workflows within the design field.

• Comfort collaborating with engineers and front-end workflows, such as Storybook, GitHub, and component documentation.

• A detail-oriented, organized approach and comfort working with standards, structure, and ongoing system maintenance.

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.

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