Director of Product Design

Twinkl Educational Publishing; Sheffield; Hybrid; GBP 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible remote working

Westfield Health

Life assurance 4x annual salary

Learning & Development

Me Day / extra annual leave

Charity day

Internal mobility opportunities

Seasonal UK events

Job summary

Twinkl Educational Publishing is seeking an experienced Director of Product Design to lead a mature, globally distributed design team. You will define the design, research, and DesignOps strategy that shapes our learner apps, core website, and teacher tools, ensuring accessible, user-centred experiences across a growing portfolio.

You’ll partner with Engineering, Product, Data, Marketing and Education teams to drive executive-level decisions, mentor design leaders, and scale a design culture

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in UI/UX product design with at least 4+ years in senior leadership/management.
• Desirable experience leading teams of UX researchers.
• Proven track record of scaling design organisations and delivering multi-platform ecosystems.
• Portfolio/case studies showing strategic design leadership and measurable business impact.
• Exceptional executive presence, storytelling, and negotiation skills.
• Deep understanding of WCAG and inclusive design frameworks.
• Experience in EdTech, gamification, or AI-enabled user experiences is highly desirable.

Responsibilities

• Scale and lead a mature design organisation across Twinkl’s product portfolio.
• Define long-term design and research vision aligned with business strategy.
• Establish DesignOps and design governance standards across product lines.
• Champion a unified design system and cross-functional collaboration with Engineering, Brand and Product.
• Collaborate with C-suite and senior leaders to align design initiatives with company objectives.
• Recruit, structure, and grow a multi-disciplinary design team for learner apps, core website, and teacher tools.
• Advocate for customer needs, accessibility, and ethical design across the organisation.

Skills

Executive leadership

UI/UX product design

DesignOps / Scaling design teams

UX research leadership

Executive presence

Accessibility (WCAG)

EdTech domain experience

Job description

Location: Remote UK, with occasional travel to the Sheffield HQ.

Contract: Permanent

Hours: 37.5 hours (Core hours 10:00am - 2:00pm Monday - Friday)

We're here to help those who teach. It's what brings us to work every day. At Twinkl, we’ve been providing educators across the world with high quality, trusted teaching and learning resources for over a decade now. They’re all written and checked by our wonderful team of experienced educators, and there are hundreds of thousands of resources to download, with new ones added daily.

The product team is dedicated to creating innovative and engaging experiences for educators and children. We are committed to enriching the lives of users through our website which enables teachers, schools, and parents, to access millions of downloadable resources, and interactive and educational applications that inspire creativity, learning, and fun.

We’re looking for an experienced and visionary Director of Product Design to drive the overarching design strategy across our entire product portfolio. You will scale and lead a mature team of design leaders and practitioners, champion design-led innovation, and ensure our product experiences deliver profound user value while accelerating our business growth.

Ongoing projects/how you’ll spend your day:

• Scaling a Mature Design Culture: Standardise and advocate for a deeply integrated, user-centric product design philosophy across the entire global organisation. Establish scalable frameworks that allow design-thinking and continuous discovery to flourish across both product and non-product business units.
• Strategic & Operational Leadership: Define, articulate, and execute the long-term design and research vision aligned with Twinkl’s multi-year business strategy. Mentor and grow design managers and lead practitioners, fostering a high-performing culture of innovation, accountability, and psychological safety.
• Design Governance: Establish the quality benchmarks and operational standards (DesignOps) for all design initiatives. Shift from day-to-day asset approval to driving systemic experience quality, consistency, and research-backed decision-making across all product lines.
• Enterprise Design Systems: Champion the evolution and adoption of a unified, functional design system and toolkit. Partner with Engineering, Product, and Brand executives to ensure the system drives cross-functional efficiency, time-saving workflows, and a cohesive brand experience at scale.
• Executive Collaboration & Influence: Act as a peer to senior leadership across Engineering, Product, Data, Marketing, and Education teams. Present high-level experience strategies to executive stakeholders, aligning product design initiatives directly with company-wide objectives and growth targets.
• Organisational Team Development: Strategically recruit, structure, and scale a multi-tiered and multi-disciplinary product design function. Optimise the team to effectively serve the end-to-end ecosystem, including learner apps, the core website, and teacher tools.
• Executive Customer Advocacy: Serve as the ultimate champion for the customer at the leadership table. Partner with the user research function to uncover deep, forward-looking insights into the behaviours and needs of educators and students globally. Ensure accessibility, inclusivity, and ethical design are institutionalised standards, not afterthoughts.

To succeed in the role, you will:

• Be an Executive Visionary: Possess a forward-looking perspective on the future of EdTech, gamification, and digital learning, with a proven ability to mobilise an entire department toward that future.
• Be a High-Impact Communicator: Master the art of translating complex design and research methodologies into compelling business outcomes for executive-level stakeholders.
• Be Business-Minded & User-Centric: Seamlessly balance deep empathy for educators, students, and parents, with a sharp understanding of subscription business metrics, business models, and data-informed decision-making.
• Be an Organisational Connector: Excel at cross-functional diplomacy, building alignment across distinct departments and successfully managing relationships from junior designers to C-suite executives.
• Be Strategically Detail-Oriented: Focus on the systemic quality of our product experiences, ensuring that design processes, frameworks, and final outputs meet world-class standards.
• Be an Innovation Catalyst: Cultivate an environment where safe experimentation is encouraged. Empower the team to responsibly leverage emerging technologies (like AI) and modern methodologies to solve complex design challenges.
• Be a Change Leader: Display exceptional resilience and a growth mindset in a fast-paced, scaling environment, guiding the design organisation smoothly through evolution and change.

We're interested in people that have:

• 10+ years of experience in UI/UX product design, with at least 4+ years in a senior leadership/management role (managing managers or leading multi-disciplinary teams).
• Desirable experience leading teams of UX researchers
• Proven track record of scaling design organisations, implementing DesignOps, and delivering complex, multi-platform ecosystem solutions.
• A sophisticated portfolio or case studies demonstrating strategic design leadership, organisational design, and the measurable business impact of your team’s work.
• Exceptional executive presence, storytelling, and negotiation skills.
• Deep understanding of global accessibility standards (WCAG) and inclusive design frameworks.
• Experience navigating the EdTech landscape, scalable gamification, or integrating emerging technologies like AI into user experiences is highly desirable.

• A friendly, welcoming and supportive culture. We believe work should be fun and always put people before process
• Flexible working with fully remote and hybrid working options - early bird or night owl? No problem - our flexible working policy helps you work the hours that suits you best
• 33 days annual leave per year, pro rata. You decide which public holidays to recognise. After 2 years of employment, your annual leave entitlement will accrue year on year up to 38 days annual leave
• An additional day of annual leave, a Me Day, to take time for yourself
• Charity day to volunteer and support a registered charity of your choice
• Westfield Health (including Health Club discount and Westfield Rewards discount and cashback)
• Learning and Development opportunities, with opportunities for internal mobility across various departments / areas of the business
• 4 x annual salary death in service life assurance
• Enhanced parental and adoption leave after long service
• Quarterly awards designed to reward and recognise our wonderful Twinkl employees
• Seasonal events for all UK employees so you can catch up with your new colleagues in person