Product Design Lead

Salt; Abu Dhabi Emirate; On-site; AED 220,000 - 360,000; Full time

Job summary

Salt is seeking a Product Design Lead to guide a small team of designers in delivering complex digital services for highly regulated environments. You’ll translate user needs, business goals, and system requirements into clear, usable experiences while growing the design function and embedding an AI-first approach.

You’ll coach three designers, map journeys, test prototypes, and collaborate with product, technology, government, and business stakeholders to turn ambiguity into concrete outcomes.

Qualifications

• 6–8+ years in product or UX design.
• Experience leading designers and cross-functional teams.
• Strong stakeholder management in complex organizations.
• Excellent problem solving for UX and user flows.
• Systems thinking to connect services end to end.
• Experience with user research and usability testing.
• Clear communication and decision-making.

Responsibilities

• Lead, coach, and support a small design team.
• Turn complex problems into clear user experiences.
• Map journeys, flows, and system interactions.
• Work with product, technology, business, and government stakeholders.
• Use AI tools and prompting to prototype with the design system.
• Plan and run usability testing and apply findings.
• Help teams become autonomous and outcomes-focused.

Skills

Product/UX design

Leadership

Stakeholder management

UX problem solving

Systems thinking

User research

Usability testing

Communication/ storytelling

Arabic and English fluency

Tools

AI tools

Job description

We’re supporting a technology company in the UAE that builds digital products and services for complex, highly regulated environments. The company is growing its product design function and developing a more product-led, data-driven approach.

The design team is adopting an AI-first way of working. With an established design system and AI tools, the team can quickly turn ideas and user flows into working prototypes. This role is for a design leader who can understand complex problems, make sound decisions, communicate clearly, and help a team deliver useful outcomes.

The role

As Product Design Lead, you’ll lead a team of around three designers and work across complex digital products and services. You’ll connect user needs, business goals, and system requirements to create clear, usable experiences.

Key responsibilities

• Lead, coach, and support a team of product designers.
• Turn complex problems into clear user experiences.
• Map user journeys, flows, processes, and system interactions.
• Look beyond individual screens to understand how services and systems work.
• Use AI tools and prompting to create and test prototypes with the existing design system.
• Plan and run usability testing, then turn findings into practical improvements.
• Work closely with product, technology, business, and government stakeholders.
• Facilitate discussions, challenge assumptions, and help stakeholders reach decisions.
• Bring clarity to ambiguous requirements and make informed decisions without waiting for perfect information.
• Help the team become more autonomous, effective, and focused on outcomes.

What you’ll bring

• 6-8+ years of product or UX design experience.
• Experience leading or developing designers.
• Strong stakeholder management skills and experience working in complex organizations.
• Excellent UX problem-solving and user-flow or journey-mapping skills.
• Systems thinking and the ability to understand how services work end to end.
• Experience with user research and usability testing.
• Strong communication, storytelling, facilitation, and decision-making skills.
• Fluency in Arabic and English.
• Experience working on government products or services, or in similarly complex organizations, is highly valued.

You don’t need to be an outstanding visual designer, but you should recognize and value quality, consistency, and clarity in visual design.

What success looks like

You help create clarity from complexity. Your team understands what matters and why, stakeholders trust your judgment, and discussions lead to decisions and progress. You help build digital services that are simpler, more usable, and more human.