Lead Forward Deployed Designer

Artificial Labs; Harrow; On-site; GBP 65,000 - 95,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Private medical insurance

Income protection insurance

Life insurance (4x base salary)

On-site gym and shower facilities

Enhanced maternity and paternity pay

Team social events and company parties

Salary exchange on pension and nursery

Job summary

Artificial Labs is building the next generation of enterprise insurance technology. We are hiring the first Forward Deployed Designer (FDD) to define and grow this enabling function within the Platform team, working with Transform squads and engineers to shape usable, scalable solutions.

You will slow down at the right moments to ensure the team solves the right problem, then implement the best platform-valid solution, coach junior designers, and contribute to hiring future FDDs as the function

Qualifications

• Experience framing the right problem in enterprise/B2B software.
• Ability to translate requests into clear, testable problems and patterns.
• Ability to coach and grow design capability within a small team.

Responsibilities

• Establish the Forward Deployed Designer function and define its operating model.
• Grow and manage the FDD team, including hiring and line management.
• Join customer and engineer sessions early to frame problems and discovery.
• Translate requests into problems with user behaviors, platform approaches, and trade-offs.
• Prototype and test ideas using written specs, wireframes, workflows, or light code.
• Provide credible pushback when proposed solutions miss underlying problems.
• Codify patterns to share knowledge across teams.

Skills

UX design

Stakeholder management

Problem framing

Coaching

DSL code reading

Tools

Design system

Job description

About Artificial

Help shape the future of specialty insurance

At Artificial, we’re building the next generation of technology for the specialty (re)insurance market. Our mission is to transform how brokers and carriers operate in complex markets by removing operational barriers and enabling smarter, faster decision-making.

We use modern technology to solve real challenges for some of the world’s leading brokers and insurers. By automating the repetitive and structuring the complex, we help our partners unlock new opportunities for innovation and growth.

You’ll be joining a collaborative team that values curiosity, ownership, and continuous learning. We work in an environment where ideas are heard, support is built‑in, and outcomes matter. Everyone here has the chance to make a tangible impact on our products, our customers, and the industry.

We've just raised $45M (£33M) in Series B funding from lead investor CommerzVentures, new investor Move Capital, as well as all existing shareholders. This investment round gives us the room to grow with confidence, continue to innovate, and ensure that Artificial remains the first choice for brokers and carriers seeking a smarter way to trade digitally.

Join us, and take the chance to be a part of something that will change the landscape of insurance for generations.

About The Role

Today, a key part of delivery has no clear owner: problem framing before configuration begins.

• On the customer side, there are rarely UX specialists - only domain experts and sponsors who describe needs as pre‑formed solutions.
• On our side, configured workspaces are built by Forward Deployed Engineers (FDEs) in our Transform team: experts in the platform, accountable for shipping to a deadline, but not trained designers.
• Our Platform teams have design expertise but are often too far removed from individual implementations to influence the moments that matter most.

The result is pretty predictable: we move quickly into “how” before we are confident about the “what” and “why.”

Your mandate is to slow down at the right moment and make sure we’re solving the right problem - then help the team implement the best platform‑valid solution.

This is a founding role. You would be the first Forward Deployed Designer (FDD) at Artificial, hired into an enabling function within the Platform team, with the mandate to define how the function works and to build it out. Later, FDDs would join the Transform teams in hands‑on client roles: you’d take part in hiring them (with our support), then line‑manage them directly.

Responsibilities

You would work closely with the Transform team and customers throughout discovery and delivery. In practice, that means:

• Establish the FDD function. Define the operating model, the patterns, and the ways of working from scratch.
• Grow and manage the team. Take part in hiring subsequent FDDs and line‑manage them as they join.
• Join customer + FDE sessions early (problem framing and discovery), not only at reviews once decisions are already fixed.
• Translate requests into problems. For example, turn “we need a confirmation button before this step” into:
• the user behaviour driving the request
• two or three platform‑valid approaches
• a recommendation, with trade‑offs explained
• Prototype and test ideas quickly using the most effective medium (written specs, wireframes, workflows, or light code). We care more about clarity and platform realism than polished artefacts.
• Provide credible pushback when the customer’s proposed solution doesn’t address the underlying problem.
• Codify patterns and precedents so knowledge moves from individual memory into shared team infrastructure.
• Level up the FDE team’s design instincts over time. You shouldn’t be the only person who can think about UX across the two teams; part of the job is coaching, so the capability can spread.
• Use workspace signals (e.g. session data and call analysis) to surface risks early - before they become escalations.

About You

You are a designer who thrives in ambiguity and constraints, someone who can bring structure, judgement, and clarity to complex, real‑world delivery.

You Likely Have Experience In Enterprise/B2B Software Where

• the design system already exists
• the hard part is framing the right problem and navigating stakeholders
• solutions must work within meaningful technical and organisational constraints

You understand technical concepts fluently. Part of the role would involve writing code (with plenty of LLM and human assistance) using our in‑house DSL (Domain Specific Language). We don’t want you to be an engineer, but we do need you to be comfortable reading and writing some code, reasoning about how a configurable system behaves, and understanding what the platform can and can’t express, well enough to hold a credible conversation with engineers and to explain these constraints to customers when necessary.

You have managed designers. You’re comfortable with line management of a small team (roughly three to five people) and have hired designers before. Early on, you’d do this hands‑on yourself; as the function grows, you’d manage the FDDs who follow.

Insurance or Lloyd’s experience is a plus, but is not a requirement. We care more about how you think about complex platforms and stakeholders than about prior domain knowledge, which you can learn here.

We especially want to hear from you if you have

• Collaborative skills with an emphasis on product quality.
• Experience in insurtech, insurance or related industries.
• Strong problem‑solving skills.
• Experience in a distributed work environment.

Benefits

• Private medical insurance
• Income protection insurance
• Life insurance of 4 * base salary
• On‑site gym and shower facilities
• Enhanced maternity and paternity pay
• Team social events and company parties
• Salary exchange on pension and nursery fees
• Access to Maji, the financial wellbeing platform
• Company stock options managed through Ledgy
• Milestone Birthday Bonus and a Life Events leave policy
• Generous holiday allowance of 28 days plus national holidays
• Home office and equipment allowance, and a company MacBook
• Learning allowance and leave to attend conferences or take exams
• YuLife employee benefits, including EAP and bereavement helplines
• For each new hire, we plant a tree through our partnership with Ecologi Action
• The best coffee machine in London, handmade in Italy and imported just for us!

We’re proud to be an equal opportunities employer and are committed to building a team that reflects the diverse communities around us. If there’s anything you need to make the hiring process more accessible, just let us know—we’re happy to make adjustments. You’re also welcome to share your preferred pronouns with us at any point.

As part of our hiring process, we’ll carry out some background checks. These may include a criminal record check, reviewing your credit history, speaking with previous employers and confirming your academic qualifications.