Jira for Designers: Project Tracking When Engineering Owns the Process

Jira is Atlassian’s project tracking tool and the de facto standard for software engineering teams at mid-to-large companies. It’s powerful, configurable, and absolutely everywhere in enterprise software development. For designers, Jira is rarely a choice—it’s a reality. If your engineering team uses Jira (and they probably do), you’ll need to learn enough to stay in sync, track design work, and communicate handoffs.

Key Specs

How Designers Use Jira

Jira adapts to different team structures and workflows. Here’s how designers integrate it into product work.

Design Task Tracking

Create design issues to track work through your own process. Use issue types like “Design Task” or “Design Spike” (some teams create custom types). Add stories to the backlog, assign to yourself, and move through columns: To Do, In Progress, Review, Done. Link design issues to related engineering tickets so everyone can see dependencies.

Design-Dev Sync

The biggest value of Jira for designers is shared visibility with engineering. When a feature moves from design to development, link your Figma files to the engineering ticket. Developers can see what’s ready, what’s in progress, and what’s blocked. Use the Figma integration to attach designs directly, or paste links in ticket descriptions. Comment on tickets to clarify interactions, edge cases, or responsive behavior.

Design Requests

Many teams use Jira to manage incoming design requests from product managers, sales, or support. Create a request form (Jira Service Management) that routes requests to a design backlog. Triage requests, prioritize with stakeholders, and move accepted work into sprints. This keeps ad-hoc requests visible and prevents them from derailing planned work.

Sprint Planning

If your team runs agile sprints, you’ll participate in sprint planning in Jira. Estimate design work (using story points or hours), commit to what you can finish in the sprint, and track progress on the sprint board. Jira’s burndown charts and velocity reports help teams see if they’re on track. Some design teams run parallel design sprints one or two sprints ahead of engineering.

Jira vs. Alternatives

How does Jira compare to other project management tools? Here’s a practical breakdown.

Choose Jira if: Your engineering team already uses it, you need deep workflow customization, or you work at an enterprise company with complex integrations.

Choose Linear if: You’re choosing a tool for a new team, want a modern UI, or prioritize speed and simplicity over configurability.

Choose Asana if: You need project management across functions (not just engineering), want timeline and calendar views, or work on marketing/operations projects.

Choose Monday.com if: You need visual project tracking with custom views, work across departments, or want a flexible tool that adapts to any workflow.

Getting Started with Jira

A 20-minute primer to make you functional on an existing Jira instance:

Step 1: Understand the hierarchy

Jira organizes work in layers: Projects contain Epics, which contain Issues (Stories, Tasks, Bugs). Think of it like folders: your design work lives in a project (maybe “Product Design” or part of a feature team project). Epics group related work (“Mobile onboarding redesign”). Issues are individual tasks (“Design login screen”). Learn your team’s structure first—ask where design work should live.

Step 2: Create and update issues

Click “Create” in the top nav, select issue type, add a title and description, assign to yourself, and set priority. Use Markdown in descriptions to format text and paste Figma links. As you work, update the status by dragging cards on the board or changing the status dropdown. Add comments to communicate progress or ask questions. Tag people with @name to notify them.

Step 3: Link everything

Jira’s power is in connections. Link design issues to engineering issues (“relates to”, “blocks”, “is blocked by”). Attach Figma files using the integration or paste URLs. Link to Confluence pages with specs. Link parent-child relationships for sub-tasks. This creates a web of context so anyone can understand dependencies without asking in Slack.

Jira in Your Design Workflow

Jira rarely stands alone in a designer’s toolkit. Here’s how it connects to the design process.

• Before Jira: Ideation in FigJam or Miro, research synthesis in Dovetail or Notion, requirements in Confluence or Google Docs
• During Jira: Design execution in Figma, task tracking in Jira, communication in Slack, design reviews in Figma or Zoom
• After Jira: Developer handoff via Figma + Jira links, QA testing, tracking bugs in Jira, shipping updates in release notes

Common tool pairings:

• Jira + Confluence for linking design specs and documentation to tracked work
• Jira + Figma for attaching designs to issues and viewing Jira status in Figma files
• Jira + Slack for notifications when issues are updated or comments are added
• Jira + Notion for design teams that prefer Notion for internal docs but use Jira for cross-functional work

Common Problems (and How to Fix Them)

These issues come up constantly when designers use Jira. Here’s how to solve them.

“Jira is overwhelming and I don’t know where my work lives”

Jira gives you too many options by default. Start by bookmarking a few key views: your team’s board, your assigned issues, and the backlog. Ignore everything else. Create a filter for issues assigned to you (assignee = currentUser() ORDER BY updated DESC) and save it. Use this as your personal to-do list. You don’t need to understand the whole system—just your corner of it.

“The interface is slow and clunky”

Jira is a legacy web app with a lot of JavaScript. It will never feel as fast as Linear or Notion. Use keyboard shortcuts to speed up common actions: c to create an issue, . to open actions menu, e to edit. Install the desktop app instead of using the browser—it’s slightly faster. Accept that Jira isn’t designed for speed and use it for what it’s good at: comprehensive tracking and integration, not quick note-taking.

“I’m spending more time in Jira than designing”

You probably are. Jira can become a time sink if you’re not disciplined. Batch your Jira updates: spend 10 minutes at the start of the day updating status, 10 minutes after lunch reviewing comments, and that’s it. Don’t live in Jira. Use it to communicate status and track handoffs, but do your actual thinking in Figma, Notion, or a notebook. Some teams assign a “Jira wrangler” role that rotates weekly to handle ticket hygiene so designers don’t have to.

“Engineering uses Jira terms I don’t understand”

Agile/Scrum terminology feels like jargon because it is. Here’s a cheat sheet: Sprint = a 1-2 week work cycle. Story = a feature from a user’s perspective. Epic = a big feature made of multiple stories. Story points = estimated effort (not hours). Velocity = how many points the team finishes per sprint. Backlog = prioritized list of future work. Grooming (or “refinement”) = meeting to clarify upcoming work. Ask your PM or tech lead to explain your team’s specific workflow. Every team uses Jira differently.

“My design work doesn’t fit into sprint-based workflows”

You’re right—design exploration doesn’t fit cleanly into 2-week sprints. Many design teams run a “design sprint” ahead of the engineering sprint, so designers have time to explore while engineers build the previous design. Others use “design spikes”: time-boxed exploration issues that don’t deliver finished work, just decisions. If your team insists on tracking every design hour in Jira, push back. Design needs room to breathe.