Design Team Lead

We are looking for a Design Team Lead to manage the day-to-day operation of the Design team across both product and marketing.

This is a management and leadership role — you will be responsible for the team's output: ensuring designers deliver high-quality, consistent work at pace, and that design decisions are increasingly grounded in data, user research, and structured UX analytics.

You will work closely with Product and Marketing to ensure design work is well understood, well prioritised, and delivered to a consistently high standard. A key part of the role is evolving how the team works — building on existing structure with clearer ownership, data-driven prioritisation, and actively leveraging AI and modern tools to increase speed, quality, and scalability of design work.

You will manage a team of designers embedded across different streams, maintain a clear view of all design work, and ensure consistency across the product and brand. You will also be responsible for hiring as the team grows.

What you'll be doing

• Managing and developing the design team — running structured 1:1s, setting goals, providing regular feedback, and supporting career development for designers across product and marketing streams

• Driving practical adoption of AI across the team — identifying tools, introducing them into workflows, and ensuring they are used to improve output rather than as isolated experiments

• Hiring as the team grows — defining requirements, running interviews, onboarding new hires

• Running usability tests and user research — using existing tools and processes to test designs, gather evidence, and feed findings into prioritisation and design decisions

• Owning design delivery and SLAs — defining intake processes, setting tiered turnaround SLAs, tracking on-time delivery, and measuring stakeholder satisfaction with design as a function

• Working closely with Product and Marketing to shape work early, clarify requirements, and align on outcomes

• Governing design quality — reviewing the team's output, maintaining quality standards and review gates, ensuring consistency across product and brand without carrying individual design work

• Building on and scaling the team's existing processes, visibility, and ways of working as we grow

• Scaling the design system — driving adoption across designers and engineers, tracking component reuse, identifying gaps, and ensuring the system accelerates delivery

• Helping marketing designers produce stronger, more effective work by shaping briefs and direction

What we're looking for

• 5+ years of experience in product design (or equivalent), with a strong foundation in design craft even though this role does not involve individual design work

• 3+ years of people management experience — hiring, managing, and developing designers day-to-day

• Experience scaling a design team

• Proven ability to introduce and embed AI tools or workflows that improve team efficiency and output

• Strong analytical skills — experience using data (usability testing, journey analytics, CX metrics, NPS/CSAT) to inform and prioritise design work

• Comfortable running usability tests and user research using provided tools and translating findings into actionable design priorities

• Excellent English communication skills (written and spoken), with the ability to review and improve customer-facing language for clarity and context

• Strong organisational and delivery management skills — experience defining SLAs, intake processes, and tracking design delivery across multiple workstreams

• Good design judgement and a clear understanding of what high-quality design looks like, combined with the ability to govern quality through review and standards rather than individual output

• Ability to work closely with cross-functional stakeholders, measure satisfaction, and build effective, trusted relationships

• Comfort operating across both product and marketing contexts

• Experience in fintech or another regulated environment, or a strong personal understanding of investing and financial products

• A structured and pragmatic approach, with a focus on delivery, clarity, and measurable outcomes

Nice to have

• Experience working on both product and marketing design within the same team

• Experience contributing to or scaling a design system, including driving engineering adoption

• Experience setting up UX dashboards or integrating design metrics into product analytics

• Experience with structured goal-setting and performance management frameworks