Lead Product Designer (Design System)

Cleo; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 82,000 - 107,000; Full time

Job summary

Join a pioneering tech startup as a Design Systems Lead, where your expertise will shape the future of financial design. This role offers a unique chance to lead the development of Cleonardo, an innovative design system that enhances user experience across platforms. Collaborate with talented teams to create a cohesive and accessible design language that reflects our refreshed brand identity. Your contributions will directly impact the financial well-being of millions, making a tangible difference in their lives. If you're passionate about design and eager to drive change, this opportunity is perfect for you.

Benefits

Competitive compensation package

Flexible working hours

Hybrid-first work environment

25 days annual leave

Private Medical Insurance

Enhanced parental leave

1 month paid sabbatical after 4 years

Regular socials and activities

Online mental health support

Company-wide performance reviews

Qualifications

• 6+ years in Product Design with 2+ years specializing in design systems.
• Experience in creating modular, accessible, user-centered designs.

Responsibilities

• Lead the development of Cleonardo’s visual language for consistency.
• Conduct UI audits to ensure quality and resolve inconsistencies.
• Drive cross-functional adoption of the design system across teams.

Skills

Design Systems

UI/UX Design

Cross-Platform Design

Accessibility Standards

Strategic Thinking

Collaboration

Problem-Solving

Visual Design

Education

Bachelor's Degree in Design or related field

Portfolio showcasing design systems

Tools

Figma

Design System Libraries

Job description

We strongly encourage applications from people of colour, the LGBTQ+ community, people with disabilities, neurodivergent people, parents, carers, and people from lower socio-economic backgrounds.

If there’s anything we can do to accommodate your specific situation, please let us know.

About Cleo

Most people come to Cleo to do work that matters. Every day, we empower people to build a life beyond their next paycheck, building a beloved AI that enables you to forge your own path toward financial well-being.

Backed by some of the most well-known investors in tech, we’ve reached millions of people to support them throughout their financial lives, from their first paycheck to their first home and beyond. We're hitting headlines too. This year, Forbes named us as one of their Next Billion Dollar Startups, and we were crowned the 'Hottest Tech Scaleup' at the Europas.

Please note that, at this time, we are unable to offer visa sponsorship for the Lead Product Designer role. Only candidates who do not require visa sponsorship should apply.

On the frontier of design

We're moving through uncharted territory with brand new design challenges around conversation, UI, brand, TOV and applied machine learning AI that don’t have much precedent yet. We’re using all that to help people improve their financial health, solving money problems that make a very real and tangible difference to our users.

The role

This is a unique opportunity to shape Cleo’s next chapter, leading initiatives that enhance both the pace and quality of our work.

Cleo is a conversation-first financial assistant, empowering people to build a stronger relationship with their money. We are launching Cleonardo, our first-ever tokenized design system, alongside a refreshed brand identity and new three-tab Information Architecture (IA). This evolution reflects the maturity and quality we believe our users deserve in their financial journey.

As Cleo’s Design Systems Lead, you’ll be part of a newly-formed, design-led, cross-functional squad dedicated to evolving, implementing, and scaling Cleo’s design system, Cleonardo.

With a focus on Quality as a company-wide OKR, your work will have a direct and high-impact role in shaping the user experience across the Cleo platform.

What you’ll be doing:

• Define and evolve visual language: Work with Principal designers to lead the development of Cleonardo’s visual language —including typography, colour, iconography, and componentry—ensuring consistency with Cleo’s rebrand and scalability across products.
• Tokenize and standardise brand elements: Integrate new brand elements into Cleonardo to create a cohesive and accessible design system that reflects our refreshed look and feel across all Cleo products.
• Holistic problem-solving: Apply strategic thinking and a big-picture perspective to evolve the design system, identifying and addressing challenges that span across teams and user experiences. Balance innovation with practicality to implement solutions that enhance the product’s usability and cohesiveness.
• Conduct UI audits and ensure quality: Regularly audit Cleo’s UI and design system to identify and resolve inconsistencies, continuously improving Cleonardo’s alignment with brand standards and design quality.
• Maintain and scale Design System Libraries: Manage Cleonardo’s Figma libraries for desktop and mobile, ensuring they are accessible, scalable, and integrated into team workflows.
• Drive Cross-functional adoption: Partner with product and engineering teams to embed Cleonardo across Cleo, establishing a contribution model that enables efficient collaboration and system coherence.
• Champion Accessibility and Inclusivity: Embed accessibility and inclusion standards within Cleonardo, ensuring that all elements meet and exceed accessibility requirements.
• Communicate and advocate for Cleonardo: Act as an ambassador for the design system, providing regular updates to stakeholders and educating teams on new patterns and components.
• Inspire innovation and elevate design standards: Bring fresh, forward-thinking ideas to the table, exploring new approaches to design systems that can elevate Cleo’s user experience and set new standards for quality and accessibility.
• Cross-Functional collaboration: Work closely with product, engineering, brand, and content teams to align Cleonardo with broader company goals, ensuring that the design system meets diverse needs and drives consistency across departments. Build relationships with key stakeholders, hold retrospectives, and gather input to promote team alignment, growth, and continuous improvement.

About you:

• Proven experience with Design Systems: Your portfolio highlights multiple design systems you’ve created or largely contributed to, showcasing a strong understanding of scalable design. Ideally, you have approx 6+ years in Product Design with 2+ years at least specialising in design systems.
• Cross-Platform expertise: You have experience designing for both mobile app and desktop environments, ensuring seamless usability across devices.
• Deep design knowledge: Skilled in creating modular, accessible, and user-centred designs that scale to millions of users.
• Collaborative and adaptable: Comfortable working within diverse, fast-paced teams, you have a track record of effective collaboration in a rapid-growth environment.
• Impact-driven: You’re motivated by seeing tangible impact, excited by the idea that work done on a Monday could be live by Friday, driving results.
• Technically proficient: Experienced in partnering closely with engineers, you understand the technical considerations of design system implementation.
• Experimentation and analysis mindset: You value experimentation, data, and analysis, using these insights to inform and iterate on design decisions.

How long will the process take?

We aim to move as fast as possible. Usually 2-3 weeks is usually enough time for us all to get to know each other.

• Step 1: An initial call with our Talent Team to learn more about your experience and why you want to work at Cleo.
• Step 2: A craft interview with a Lead Designer to walk through some of your mobile app work and impact.
• Step 3: A case study interview to present an example of design systems work with two of our design systems team.
• Step 4: A final Values interview with cross-functional peers from either product, engineering, content or data.

What do you get for all your hard work?

• A competitive compensation package (base + equity): You can view our public progression framework and salary bandings here: This role is level PD4 and we can pay between £82,539 - £106,905 pa depending on experience.
• Work at one of the fastest-growing tech startups, backed by top VC firms like Sofina, Balderton & EQT Ventures.
• A clear progression plan: We want you to keep growing. That means trying new things, leading others, challenging the status quo and owning your impact. Always with our complete support.
• Flexibility: We treat you as humans first, employees second. Because we can’t fight for the world’s financial health, if we’re not healthy ourselves. This means all the usual perks but it also means flexibility. We take pride in being a flexible workplace that trusts our Cleople to deliver their best work, giving you the autonomy to structure your day around morning drop-offs to school or daily dog walks.
• Hybrid-first: Join our hybrid-first team, where we blend the best of both remote and in-office work. We expect our team members to be in our London office 1-2 times a week. On Thursdays, we buy you lunch but you can come to the office on whichever days work best for you!

Other benefits:

• Generous pay increases for high-performers and high-growth team members.
• Equity top-ups for team members getting promoted.
• 25 days annual leave a year + public holidays (+ an additional day for every year you spend at Cleo).
• Company-wide performance reviews every 8 months e.g every 2 terms, in line with our termly cycles (Jan-April, May-Aug, Sept-Dec).
• Private Medical Insurance via Vitality, dental cover, and life assurance.
• Enhanced parental leave.
• 1 month paid sabbatical after 4 years at Cleo.
• Regular socials and activities, online and in-person.
• We'll pay for your OpenAI subscription.
• Online mental health support via Spill.
• And many more!

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We are looking for product designers with previous experience of working on multiple Design Systems that either focus on or include mobile apps. Can you briefly summarise your experience of leading high impact Design Systems work - either launching or relaunching a new Design System, or significantly expanding an existing one? *

We are a hybrid-first team blending the best of remote and in-office work. Are you able to travel to our London office 1-2 times a week? *

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