Product Design Lead

Job reference: 000693

Salary: £61,401 per annum

Employment type: Permanent

Department: Customer Journey

Hours per week: 36 hours and 15 minutes

Interview date: 19\21 October

Contract Duration: Not specified

Citizens Advice offers confidential advice online, over the phone, and in person, for free. Through our national network of charities, we give people the knowledge and the confidence they need to find their way forward – whoever they are, and whatever their problem.

We particularly welcome applications from disabled and Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) candidates as BAME and disabled people are currently under-represented throughout Citizens Advice. We are a member of the race equality campaign at Business in the Community, the Prince’s responsible business network and are committed to improving employment opportunities for ethnic minorities across the UK. We also welcome applications from, LGB and Trans and non binary candidates.

We have made a positive commitment to employing disabled people and guarantee to interview all disabled candidates who meet the minimum essential criteria for the role as set out in role profiles.

We’re looking for an experienced and inclusive problem-solver, with lots of experience of product design, to lead our Product Design community at Citizens Advice. You’ll lead a multi-level team of Product Designers working across the organisation, collectively delivering a sustainable, user-led approach to advice. The team is at the heart of the organisation’s ambition to deliver our vision for 2022.

We’re growing fast, and today, we have 7 multidisciplinary product teams in our London office, split across four areas: public advice, adviser-facing services, platforms, and funded programmes.

What we mean when we say ‘Product Design’

In Customer Journey we often design digital products, but we’re not limited to digital. Our Product Designers designs products, touchpoints, and services. We break Product  Design down to 4 aspects of design:

• User Experience (UX) Design?—?how a thing feels

• Interaction Design?—?how a thing behaves

• User Interface Design?—?how a thing looks

• Information Architecture?—?how a thing is structured

You’ll lead the practice of product design across all of these areas, solving difficult design problems and working on things that really matter. You’ll bring your team onboard with ideas, and coordinate design activities across multiple products to enable a clear and unified user experience. 

You’ll be responsible for ensuring the right conditions for designers to work effectively. You’ll set design direction, assure the quality of design delivery across teams, and make sure we design with all users in mind. You’ll be an ally and mentor to other designers who will learn from your skills and experience.

You’ll provide leadership and coaching to the Product Design community, ensuring the team work collaboratively and consistently across all products and platforms. You will help us meet our mission by discovering new ways of approaching (and solving) complex problems and concepts, across the full breadth of product design.

Everyone is welcome at Citizens Advice. We care deeply about inclusive working practices and diverse teams. If you’d prefer to work flexibly, or part-time, we’ll facilitate this — whether to help you meet other commitments or to help you strike a great work-life balance. Several of our leadership team work 4 days a week, and we all work from home regularly.

Please note, in the event of a high number of applications, we reserve the right to close the application early.