Senior Product Designer: Rewards at Old Mutual

Design Leadership 

• Lead the design strategy and vision for the product, ensuring alignment with business goals and user needs.
• Lead cross-functional workshops and ideation sessions to foster creativity and reinforce a unified design vision.
• Direct and oversee the execution of design projects, from concept to delivery, ensuring high-quality outcomes.
• Integrate the multi-disciplinary design team towards a unified, efficient and effective design environment that can deliver to business and customer outcomes.
• Conduct and guide user research and testing activities to gain insights and inform design decisions. Present these with impact across stakeholder levels.
• Collaborate closely with product managers, engineers, and other stakeholders to define requirements and prioritise features.
• Drive the creation of user-centred design solutions, including wireframes, prototypes, and visual designs.
• Advocate for design excellence and experience best practices within the product team and broader portfolio.
• Stay abreast of methods, tools, technology and platforms within the product space and their associated experience design principles and best practices.

Design Quality & Delivery Management

• Create a clear understanding of the drivers of design quality within the product, as they pertain to strategic alignment, business case, customer and business requirement and design standards.
• Establish quality management within the product design team to ensure quality standards are checked and met appropriately.
• Represent the design stream within the team, and collaborate with the Product Owner and Agile Management Structures to ensure that we are delivering within time, quality and budget controls.
• Report appropriately to the Design CoE on performance and governance requirements, ensuring compliance and supporting collaboration across teams.

Design Team & Stakeholder Management

• Build and sustain effective relationships with key stakeholders, including product owners, digital marketing, and technical teams, to ensure design objectives are aligned with overarching business goals.
• Present design concepts, progress, and performance metrics to senior leadership, highlighting the role of design in driving business outcomes.
• Lead the collaboration of cross-functional teams to incorporate feedback into design iterations, keeping stakeholders engaged throughout the project lifecycle.
• As a leader, emphasise mentorship and personal growth by dedicating time to teaching, guiding, and fostering the development of the design team, building a positive, engaging and progressive culture within the team.

Design Execution

• Support the design team in crafting user-centred, visually compelling, and highly functional designs that elevate the customer experience.
• Ensure consistency and coherence across all aspects of the product design, including interaction patterns, visual style, and brand identity.
• Execute product design personally at a high-level of quality and efficiency, modelling delivery to the team and stakeholders.

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS/ EXPERIENCE (REQUIRED FOR THE JOB)

Working Experience & Qualifications

• NQF Level 4: Grade 12 or equivalent
• 6+ years working in the field of product design, 2+ within roles that involved product design leadership.
• Experience working in an Omni-Channel Digital and Agile environment,  with cross-functional collaboration, working with product, engineering, and business teams.
• Proven track record of delivering high-performance team and quality outcomes across complex, omni-channel design environments.

Technical Expertise

• Proficiency in user research methodologies, including interviews, surveys, and usability testing.
• Deep understanding of UX/UI methodologies, including user research, wireframing, prototyping, usability testing, accessibility and visual design.
• Strong expertise in design tools (e.g., Sketch, Figma, Adobe Creative Suite) and front-end development principles (HTML, CSS, JavaScript).
• Strong ability to translate user insights into actionable design solutions, such as sitemaps, wireframes, and prototypes.
• Strong ability in visual design and management of the relationship between UX and UI activities within a project.
• Expertise in developing workflows, interaction flows, information architecture, and navigational flows.
• Up-to-date with industry trends and emerging technologies.
• Experience in senior design leadership, motivating teams to excel, mentoring and coaching teams towards high performance and integrating with executive business stakeholders towards the achievement of business goals.
• Experience with agile methodologies and working collaboratively in cross-functional teams.
• Deep appreciation and experience with the application of, and contribution to, design systems and component libraries.

ADDITIONAL QUALIFICATIONS/EXPERIENCE (PREFERRED)

• Bachelor's Degree in design (Interaction, Graphic, Industrial), marketing, technology, business administration or a related field. With an Honour’s or Master’s degree as an additional plus.
• Experience with emerging technologies (e.g., AR/VR, AI).
• Background in cognitive psychology or human factors.
• Familiarity with accessibility standards and guidelines.
• Experience with service design and design thinking.
• Track record of published work or speaking at industry events
• Experience designing for multiple platforms, including web, mobile, and desktop.

COMPETENCIES REQUIRED

• Delivery Focus: Leads teams to effective and efficient delivery with a focus on time, quality and budget.
• Collaboration: Ability to bring many inter-connected disciplines, roles and processes together through excellence in facilitating collaboration towards shared and integrated outcomes.
• Communication: Excellent verbal and written communication skills, capable of presenting to senior stakeholders.
• Problem-Solving: Strong analytical and critical thinking skills, with a passion for solving complex design challenges.
• Coaching and Mentorship: A commitment to developing and nurturing talent through regular feedback and professional development.

Skills

• Adaptive Thinking
• Business Requirements Analysis
• Commercial Acumen
• Creative Design
• Current State Analysis
• Customer Analytics
• Market Analysis
• Negotiation
• Oral Communications
• Presentation Preparations
• Presentation Techniques
• Presenting Solutions
• Product Development
• Strategic Planning
• User Experience (UX) Design

Closing Date

• 24 June 2025 , 23:59