JOB TITLE: Principal Product Designer (12 Month FTC/Secondment)
LOCATION: Manchester or Cardiff
Salary: £78,098 - £91,880
HOURS: Full-Time
WORKING PATTERN: Our work style is hybrid, which involves spending at least two days per week, or 40% of our time in the office.
About this opportunity
We're looking for an experienced Principal Product Designer to play a critical leadership role within the Transport Experience Design team.
This role is for someone who combines exceptional design craft with the ability to influence at scale. You'll be a recognised expert in your field, responsible for raising the quality, consistency and effectiveness of design across Transport. You'll coach and mentor designers, shape the future direction of our practice, and influence strategic decisions through your expertise and insight.
You'll bring deep experience leading complex, large-scale transformation programmes, establishing and evolving design systems, and creating strong partnerships between Design, Product and Engineering. As a senior individual contributor, you'll act as a trusted advisor to leaders and teams, helping to solve complex customer and business problems while ensuring we maintain the highest standards of design excellence.
As a Principal Product Designer, it's your role to:
- Set and uphold the quality bar for Experience Design across the Transport portfolio.
- Define, evolve and champion design methods, standards, frameworks and guidelines.
- Lead complex and strategically important initiatives, helping teams navigate ambiguity and deliver customer-centred outcomes.
- Shape the future direction of the team through thought leadership, innovation and continuous improvement.
- Partner closely with Engineering to drive the development, adoption and governance of design systems and reusable patterns.
- Act as the bridge between Design and Engineering, creating strong collaboration and ensuring experiences are delivered with quality and consistency.
- Influence product, service and business strategy through specialist expertise, customer insight and evidence-based recommendations.
- Coach, mentor and develop designers across the team, helping them strengthen their craft, confidence and impact.
- Provide expert guidance and constructive challenge to senior partners, product leaders and delivery teams.
What you'll have
- Significant experience leading the design of complex digital products and services at scale.
- A proven track record of leading large-scale transformation programmes and influencing organisational change.
- Extensive experience establishing, scaling or evolving design systems in partnership with Engineering teams.
- Demonstrable experience coaching, mentoring and developing designers at different stages of their careers.
- Exceptional interaction, product design craft, with a strong portfolio demonstrating strategic and delivery impact.
- Experience setting design standards, frameworks and quality measures across teams or organisations.
- Strong stakeholder management and influencing skills, including experience working with senior and executive leaders.
- A deep understanding of customer-centred design methods and when to apply them effectively.
- Strong facilitation, communication and storytelling skills, with the ability to inspire confidence and alignment across diverse audiences.
You’ll ideally have
- Knowledge of transport, mobility, automotive or financial services sectors.
About working for us
Our focus is to ensure we're inclusive every day, building an organisation that reflects modern society and celebrates diversity in all its forms. We want our people to feel that they belong and can be their best, regardless of background, identity or culture.
We were one of the first major organisations to set goals on diversity in senior roles, create a menopause health package, and a dedicated Working with Cancer initiative. And it’s why we especially welcome applications from under-represented groups.
We’re disability confident. So if you’d like reasonable adjustments to be made to our recruitment processes, just let us know.
We also offer a wide-ranging benefits package, which includes:
- A generous pension contribution of up to 15%
- An annual performance-related bonus
- Share schemes including free shares
- Benefits you can adapt to your lifestyle, such as discounted shopping
- 30 days’ holiday, with bank holidays on top
- A range of wellbeing initiatives and generous parental leave policies
If you’re excited by the thought of becoming part of our team, get in touch. We’d love to hear from you!
