Senior Product Designer at Absa Group Limited (Absa)

Job Summary

• Senior Product designers solve complex customer and business problems on multiple projects and teams at a time through the skills of their discipline, a deep understanding of customer behaviour and by driving collaboration.
• They take ownership of the standards in their discipline and collaborate with other designers to define and govern those standards. 
• Senior Product designers have deep expertise in one or more of the core design disciplines (user experience design, user interface design, service design, customer research, prototype engineering and content strategy) and understand how the various design disciplines integrate to deliver impact. 
• They engage with stakeholders to motivate for and define design work and ensure that it always meets customer needs while solving business problems. 
• A successful Senior Product designer is a specialist in one or more of the core disciplines. They are self-starters with a passion for high quality design and the expertise to define high-quality and scalable standards. 
• They have a strong track record of delivering complex, creative and innovative design projects that elevate the customer experience within tightly constrained environments.

Job Description

Accountability:  Problem solving and execution

• Engage with Design Project Lead and Director to unpack complex problems and define clear customer focused problem statements.
• Lead the team in defining an approach as well as clear scope, outputs and milestones for specific discipline. 
• Distill complex concepts and present them back to business in a way that addresses the customer need.
• Day-to-day execution of high-quality designs (in specific discipline) that solves for one complex or several customer problem/s.
• Create the optimal solution for the customer needs, driving an approach of continuous improvement by testing, learning and iterating on the solution. 
• Is an advocate and representative of the design thinking methodologies and practices. 
• Takes ownership of the alignment to standards for a specific discipline and constructively challenges other designers on technical decisions to ensure that we create the best possible experience for customers.
• Promote and drive collaboration with other teams tackling similar customer problems.

Accountability:  High quality design

• Create creative, innovative and high-quality design solutions to create a world-class customer experience across the projects in Absa
• Give a significant contribution to the design within the project, while providing thought leadership for specific design disciplines and standards.
• Take ownership in applying design thinking and best practice standards in developing design options and narrowing down the final solution
• Leverage insight and data, such as market analysis, customer feedback, and user research analytics to ensure that products/services/solutions are designed around the customer and deliver improved experience; surface and share insights to the broader team
• Design scenarios, mock-ups and prototypes as necessary for each stage of the project, continuously iterating to achieve the optimal output
• Align the design to the design standards and brand guidelines to ensure consistent experience to the customer across the Absa ecosystem

Accountability:  Building capabilities

• Lead a design discipline by creating and maintaining standards for that specific discipline
• Continuously research and share insights into world standards and best practices
• Mentor designers from a skills perspective within your discipline
• Continuously build your own expertise by, for example, actively seeking and incorporating feedback, and following external trends and best practices
• Contribute the knowledge building of the entire team by actively sharing insights and success stories; and providing feedback and ideas across different design projects 

Education and experience required

• Matric (Mandatory)
• Degree or diploma in a Design discipline such as product, industrial, service, interaction, graphic, multimedia, communication, digital or visual design or an equivalent qualification such as Marketing management, commerce, Psychology, engineering, sociology and anthropology, copywriting, etc. (NQF level 7)
• Minimum of 5 years of technical design experience or customer focused experience at scale
• Track record of delivering complex, high quality design projects, with strong customer and business impact.
• Two years of experience conducting audience and usability research including benchmarking, heuristic reviews, surveys, analytics, stakeholder interviews, focus groups, contextual inquiry, and usability testing
• Demonstrated experience in each of the usability and software engineering cycle phases (analysis, design, implementation, and deployment) 
• Ability to communicate ideas through drawing, digital tools, prototyping, model making, journeys etc.

Knowledge and skills: (Maximum of 6)

• Advanced understanding of either Product or Service design. 
• Thought leadership and advanced abilities in user experience design, user interface design, service design, customer research prototype engineering or content strategy. 
• Problem-solving skills – ability to work tirelessly and think creatively in order to find solutions to complex problems that result in a great customer experience.
• Literacy of design tools specific to discipline.
• Advanced understanding of the importance of data and insight in defining solutions and ability to use data to influence and drive decision-making.
• Awareness of new and emerging design trends and patterns in specific design discipline.

Competencies: (Maximum of 8 competencies)

• Ability to provide creative and innovative ideas and concepts to push the thinking on customer experience
• Delivering results and meeting customer and business expectations 
• Meticulous attention to detail
• Great communicator with strong written and verbal communication skills
• Upholding standards by creating and embedding principles and values
• Continuous learning and researching to develop core expertise
• Ability to work within a team 

Education

• Bachelor`s Degrees and Advanced Diplomas: Physical, Mathematical, Computer and Life Sciences (Required)

End Date: October 14, 2025