Product Design Director

Job Description

We're looking for a Product Design Director to help grow and develop the design function at Planes.

🌱 Everyone is welcome 🌱

We strongly believe in building a diverse and inclusive team, please don't see everything here as a 'must have'. We highly encourage applications from people of colour, the LGBTQ+ community, people with disabilities, neuro-divergent people, parents, carers and people from any socio-economic backgrounds. If you have any requirements or preferences that help you feel comfortable during the interview process please just let us know.

Where: Hybrid; we split our time between being remote and in our London studio

Interview process: 3 stages with a practical element focussing on process

Salary: £90k - £110k per annum

About us ✈️

Planes is a digital product studio based in London. We’re a team of product lovers, designers and engineers who care about creating awesome digital products that are built to last.

Our background is in startups, not agencies. We prefer shipping code, listening to users and iterating quickly rather than long lunches, ‘expert’ reports and death by powerpoint. This approach has lead us to work with all sorts of people, from international fin-tech providers to startups, building products that their users love.

A small and nimble team, we work collaboratively to produce work that we are proud of and our clients love.

What we’re looking for 👋

You might:

• Have significant experience within design and are an expert in applying design best practices in complex, challenging projects
• Have managed, coached and grown teams, and knows what it takes to make a great one
• Be confident in developing and growing trusted relationships with senior clients, being able to actively address and resolve any relationship issues which impact the project and team
• Possess great communication skills, you’re able to speak to our clients and our team with ease
• Have experience overseeing the delivery of high impact work
• Want to contribute to not only your projects, but the growth of Planes as a whole
• Have tried things that have failed and have learnt from the experience
• Be comfortable not knowing everything, but have the desire to grow
• Be an inspirational leader, not a micro-manager

Requirements

As a Product Design Director at Planes, you'll be responsible for design leadership in one or more projects, with designers at all levels supporting. Product Designers and other team members will look to you for guidance and advice, and you will be able to coach them in best practice. Which is why we’re looking for these things;

• Experience in winning new business, from proposal writing to pitching all the way to leading early stage workshops
• Experience in creating and executing strategies with a client and team by using sound product management skills to bring it to life
• Experience in leading product teams in an agile environment
• You've spent time leading projects from conception through to delivery
• Understanding of good feedback and coaching practices
• Experience of running workshops and leading presentations with clients and stakeholders
• Experience with project profitability; understanding utilisation and team resourcing
• Knowledge in how to maintain and improve the design function, scoping out new tools and processes

Benefits

• 25 days holiday (plus your birthday off)
• Optional 20 days unpaid holiday a year, for all you explorers out there
• Work from Anywhere policy
• 8% pension contribution
• Learning and development budget
• Access to the cycle to work scheme
• Enhanced Parental Leave. This is a gender-neutral policy where you can take up to 4 months of parental leave at full pay, at any time within the first 18 months of your child's life
• Flexible working; we're Flexa accredited with a score of 89.5%
• Partnership with Spill for all our team to have access to therapy sessions
• We're a Stigma Statistics' Safer & Supported accredited workplace
• Partnership with Bippit for all our team to have access to a financial coach
• Annual bonus