Lead Product Designer
London
OakNorth Bank – Product and Design /
Permanent - Full Time /
Hybrid
Lead Product Designer
We’re looking for a skilled Lead Product Designer to join our Product and Design team and help shape the future of banking.
As a Lead Product Designer, you’ll take the lead on driving design initiatives that have a direct impact on how users experience our products. Working closely with the Director of Product Design and other senior leaders, you’ll help shape the strategy behind our design vision and see it through to execution.
In this role, you’ll collaborate with cross-functional teams to ensure that design not only meets user needs but also aligns with business goals and supports our long-term product ambitions. You’ll also play a pivotal role in guiding the design process, mentoring junior designers, and influencing the direction of our products to deliver thoughtful, user-centered solutions that fuel our growth.
You’ll be 👋
- Shaping the design vision and strategy, ensuring that what we create is aligned with both user needs and business objectives.
- Leading the design process for complex challenges across multiple products, from concept to delivery.
- Collaborating with product managers, engineers, and other stakeholders to ensure seamless alignment across teams.
- Working closely with squads on a day-to-day basis, feeding in user insights, creating designs, and implementing them effectively.
- Creating and refining design systems that promote consistency, scalability, and efficiency.
- Guiding and mentoring junior designers, helping them grow and deliver their best work.
- Using insights from user research and data to make informed, user-focused design decisions.
- Driving innovation by identifying opportunities to create delightful and impactful user experiences.
- Fostering a collaborative and inclusive design culture where ideas and feedback are shared openly.
- Advocating for design excellence within the organisation and ensuring that design is represented in strategic decisions.
You are 👷♀️
- Empathetic, strategic, and collaborative, with a strong focus on creating user-first experiences.
- A natural leader who can inspire and guide the team while fostering a positive and supportive environment.
- Proactive and resourceful, able to connect the dots and keep projects moving forward.
- Passionate about your craft, with a sharp eye for detail and a commitment to quality.
- Comfortable working in cross-functional teams, finding the right balance between momentum and perfection.
- A confident communicator, capable of articulating design decisions and influencing stakeholders.
You'll need 🧱
- Proven experience as a Lead Product Designer, with a portfolio showcasing high-quality digital experiences.
- A track record of shaping and delivering design strategies that align with business goals and user needs.
- Experience across all aspects of the design process, from user research and prototyping to high-fidelity design and implementation.
- Strong expertise in tools like Figma, Adobe Suite, along with a solid understanding of design systems (Tokens) and pattern libraries.
- An ability to work across disciplines, bringing together product, design, and engineering to deliver cohesive solutions.
- This is an exciting opportunity to take on a leadership role, make a real impact, and shape the future of our design practice.
How we expect you to work 👷♀️
- We expect you to work in these ways, as well as encouraging and enabling these practices from others:
- Collaborate 💬 - We work in cross-functional, mission driven, autonomous squads that gel over time. We pair program to work better through shared experience and knowledge.
- Focus on outcomes over outputs ✅ - Solving a problem for users that translates to business results is our goal. Measurements focused on that goal help us to understand if we are succeeding.
- Practice continuous improvement 💡 - We optimise for feedback now, rather than presume what might be needed in the future and introduce complexity before it will be used. This means we learn faster. We share learnings in blame-free formats, so that we do not repeat things that have failed, but still have confidence to innovate.
- Seek to understand our users 👂 - We constantly seek understanding from data and conversations to better serve our users' needs, taking an active part in research to hear from them directly and regularly.
How we expect you to behave ❤️
- We embrace difference and know that when we can be ourselves at work, we are happier, more motivated and creative. We want to be able to bring our whole selves to work, have our own perspectives and know that we belong. As such, through your behaviours at work, we expect you to reflect and actively sustain a healthy engineering environment that looks like this:
- A wide range of voices heard to the benefit of all
- Teams that are clearly happy, engaged, and laugh together
- Perceivable safety to have an opinion or ask a question
- No egos - people listen to and learn from others at all levels, with strong opinions held loosely
What makes working here better 😍
- Flexible, Hybrid Working 🏠 - A flexible, Hybrid team with a dedicated London office available 5 days a week to use as we want to.
- Work-life balance 🌴 - 25 days holiday (plus bank holidays) each year, and enhanced family leave allowances.
- Competitive salary & equity 🏦 - We want people to have a serious stake in the business.
- Good kit 💻 - Your choice of the best laptop, running macOS.
- Team socials 🎉 - The opportunity to get to know each other outside of work.
- Company socials 🥡 - A chance to catch up and meet new colleagues weekly over informal office breakfasts and dinners on OakNorth - or at our free barista bar every day.
- Commuter support 🚲 - We offer the cycle to work and EV scheme.
