We are looking for a Senior Product Designer to join our team, focusing on crafting meaningful and impactful user experiences across our product suite. In this role, you will work closely with product management, engineering, and other cross-functional partners to deeply understand user needs and translate them into elegant, intuitive, and highly functional product designs. This is a strategic position where you will play a key role in guiding design decisions, mentoring the team, and shaping the overall design vision.

Responsibilities

1. User Research and Discovery (30%)

• Lead user research initiatives to gain insights into user behaviour, pain points, and motivations.

• Collaborate with product managers and researchers to define and validate hypotheses through qualitative and quantitative research.

• Synthesise research findings to inform design direction and ensure a deep understanding of our users throughout the design process.

• Support a culture of continuous discovery, ensuring user needs are at the centre of all product decisions.

2. Design Execution and Prototyping (40%)

• Own the full product design lifecycle from beginning to end: translating user insights into ideas that form disruptive new products and features, then designing the workflows and detailed interactions to realise them.

• Design intuitive, elegant, and accessible user interfaces that solve key user problems and meet business goals.

• Create wireframes, high-fidelity designs, and interactive prototypes to effectively communicate design ideas.

• Prototype ideas to quickly assess viability, and pressure test the lowest level detail of the interactions.

• Iterate quickly based on feedback from users and team members.

• Work closely with engineering teams to ensure the feasibility of designs and to maintain design quality throughout the development process.

• Advocate for consistent, inclusive, and user-centric design patterns across the product suite.

3. Cross-functional Collaboration (20%)

• Partner closely with product managers, engineers, and other stakeholders to align design decisions with business objectives and technical constraints.

• Facilitate design reviews and provide constructive feedback to maintain high-quality standards.

• Present and justify design decisions to stakeholders, incorporating feedback while balancing user needs, technical feasibility, and business impact.

• Be embedded into a design and collaborate closely with Product Managers and Engineers, ensuring involvement throughout the end-to-end development process, from ideation to design QA.

4. Mentorship and Design Leadership (10%)

• Act as a leader within the Design team, collaborating with other designers and the rest of the team to improve our approach and the quality of our work.

• Mentor and provide guidance to the team, supporting their growth and helping them develop design best practices.

• Help the broader team run evaluative user research and discovery initiatives, improving practices and ensuring high-quality, user-centric insights.

• Contribute to the overall design culture of the team, fostering collaboration, innovation, and a user-first mindset.

• Play a key role in establishing and evolving the design system, ensuring consistency across the product.

Required Skills & Experience 

• 5+ years of experience in product design or UX/UI design roles, preferably in a fast-paced, cross-functional environment.

• Strong portfolio demonstrating a range of user-centric design solutions, from ideation to high-fidelity product design.

• Proficiency with design tools such as Figma.

• Experience working with design systems and contributing to their evolution.

• Demonstrated ability to mentor and support the wider team.

• Experience conducting user research to gather and synthesise insights.

• Ability to create beautiful high-fidelity mockups of your designs using industry-standard tools.

• Comfortable with stepping out of comfort zones and bringing a creative approach to problem-solving.

Key Competencies 

• User Empathy: A deep understanding of user needs and the ability to advocate for them throughout the product development process.

• Analytical Thinking: Ability to use data and user research insights to inform design decisions and solve problems.

• Collaboration: Strong collaboration skills, able to work effectively across disciplines and influence stakeholders to drive alignment and impact.

• Communication: Strong verbal and visual communication skills, able to present and articulate design decisions clearly to diverse audiences.

• Growth Mindset: Resilient and adaptable, open to feedback and focused on continuous improvement and learning. Develop a resilient attitude towards challenges, staying adaptable to change and maintaining a positive outlook in dynamic environments.

• Design Craftsmanship: High standards of design quality, with expertise in user interface, interaction design, and accessibility.

• Problem Solving and Innovation: Ability to solve complex problems using non-linear and systems thinking, and to generate innovative solutions that elevate the user experience.

• End-to-End Product Design: Proven ability to take ownership of the entire product design process, from discovery to detailed interactions, ensuring successful implementation.

Qualifications 

• Bachelor’s degree in Design, Human-Computer Interaction, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.

What's in it for You?

• EMI company share scheme, meaning you would own a percentage of shares, turning into significant monetary value in time.
• Competitive salary.
• Westfield Health Care plan.
• 1-2-1 Sanctus coaching sessions to support personal and professional development with proactive mental wellbeing support.
• Fully flexible working.
• A paid day off on your birthday.
• AIG Life insurance.
• Workplace Nursery Benefit
• Long service awards to celebrate key employment anniversaries.
• Excellent discounts/wider wallet.
• 5% matched contribution pension scheme.
• 25 days holiday + bank holidays (33 days).
• Paid wellbeing days, volunteer days, and study days.
• Quarterly values awards.
• Staff parties and events.
• Modern homeworking tech kit.
• Enhanced maternity & paternity pay.
• And being part of something AMAZING!

Cognassist is a Disability Confident Committed employer, and we welcome your application even if you believe you do not meet all of the above criteria - your unique skills, and experiences are valued, and your contribution could be exactly what we need to grow together.