Product Designer

Arondite; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 65,000 - 90,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity options for EMI

7% pension contribution

Free office meals

Private health & dental

Cycle to work

Relocation support

Visa sponsorship

Training resources

Collaborative colleagues

Job summary

Arondite is a defence-tech startup building Cobalt, a mission-critical operating system for connected defence. We seek a design-led teammate to shape the product vision and user experience in demanding contexts.

As the third design member, you will influence visual direction, collaborate with engineers and users, and push AI-enabled design processes, including prototyping with Cursor & Claude Code. Office-first, with home days possible.

Qualifications

• Experience conducting user interviews.
• Experience of handling and contributing to a design system.
• Experience designing enterprise-grade software for desktop and mobile environments.
• Skill in UI prototyping tools such as Figma and/or Adobe XD.

Responsibilities

• Ship the best design work of your career, raising the bar for visual design and craft in a way that showcases Arondite as a leader in the space.
• Design tailored interfaces that provide the correct level of technical clarity for different user personas and stakeholders.
• Carefully curate the product’s architecture and general user experience as Cobalt grows.
• Understand and empathise with our users to create a solution that best solves the problems they face. This may mean having to define and communicate the 'new' way of doing things.
• Develop an AI-native design process that produces the right artefacts at the right time: from running in-person workshops to prototyping with Cursor & Claude Code.

Skills

UI prototyping

User interviews

Design systems

Enterprise software design

Geospatial UI design

HTML/CSS/JS/TS

React familiarity

Tools

Figma

Adobe XD

Job description

About Arondite

Arondite enables organisations to wield autonomy, data and AI at scale. We equip operators with the foundational software to orchestrate their mix of platforms and capabilities, and then take mission-critical decisions faster than their adversaries.

We exist to ensure the UK and its allies out-think, out-pace and out-adapt those who seek to threaten our values and way of life. Our technology is designed for deployment in the world’s most austere environments, and is relied upon by the world’s most demanding operators. We deploy alongside them, bringing our technical expertise wherever it is needed.

You will join Arondite at a pivotal moment in the company’s journey. We are ambitious, building for the long-term and backed by globally renowned investors including Index Ventures (Anthropic, Wiz, Figma, Revolut). Our company is being built by exceptional engineers - people who find high-impact and technically challenging work engaging and exciting, and who consistently deliver outsized impact. You will collaborate with other brilliant minds to solve some of the world’s hardest and most important problems.

You will have ownership and autonomy from Day One. There is no corporate ladder at Arondite. From your first day, you will directly influence the design, functionality, and direction of Arondite’s product offering. We hire the best people and give them extremely high levels of autonomy; the sky is the limit for an individual with the right ambition.

If you are motivated by our mission and if you want to be part of a growing team of outstanding people, then we want to hear from you.

About the role

Unlike most defence tech, design is a first-class citizen at Arondite. To accomplish our vision, we believe it's crucial our software is unmistakable in mission-critical scenarios, governed by careful design decisions and rigorous safeguarding along the way. As the third design member, you’ll have a direct impact on the future of human-machine teaming in this industry, alongside strong influence on the product vision, visual direction, and design culture at Arondite.

You’ll be working on our flagship product, Cobalt. Cobalt is an operating system for connected defence. It provides users with a wide range of capabilities, from geospatial terrain analysis and annotation to complex mission planning, where users have to coordinate the actions of humans and autonomous devices working in the same environment. The work you’ll be doing here will be in entirely new and unexplored problem spaces.

Your work will have direct relevance to mission-critical environments and to the national security priorities of the UK and NATO. You will be expected to move quickly, think rigorously, and collaborate closely with users and internal teams to ensure Arondite builds software that solves the right problems in the right way.

About you

Experience:

• We don’t have a strict YOE requirement. Instead, we’re looking for somebody who can demonstrate they’ve shipped world-class interfaces which have solved real user problems, whether that’s by working in big tech or from launching your own side project.

How you work:

• You’re a designer who uses AI to move beyond a Figma handoff. You’re comfortable jumping into the frontend to tweak and polish the final 10%.
• You have an eye for craft. You understand how to create a high-quality, lovable product while balancing speed.
• You'll have the courage to ask questions, experiment, and advocate for what you feel is right for the user.

How you work with others:

• You can voice a design perspective with high conviction but open-mindedness.
• You’re an empathetic, collaborative teammate who can provide and take constructive feedback with no ego.
• You’re comfortable working in fast-moving environments where priorities may change and engineering ships quickly.

What you’ll do

• Ship the best design work of your career, raising the bar for visual design and craft in a way that showcases Arondite as a leader in the space.
• Design tailored interfaces that provide the correct level of technical clarity for different user personas and stakeholders.
• Carefully curate the product’s architecture and general user experience as Cobalt grows.
• Understand and empathise with our users to create a solution that best solves the problems they face. This may mean having to define and communicate the 'new' way of doing things.
• Develop an AI-native design process that produces the right artefacts at the right time: from running in-person workshops to prototyping with Cursor & Claude Code.

You should have:

• Experience conducting user interviews
• Experience of handling and contributing to a design system
• Experience designing enterprise-grade software for both desktop and mobile environments
• Skill in UI prototyping tools such as Figma and/or Adobe XD

Ideally, you would also have:

• Experience designing geospatial applications for both desktop and mobile applications

• Understanding of interfaces for controlling robotic systems
• Familiarity with HTML, CSS, Javascript, and Typescript
• Ability to create or modify designs in frontend frameworks such as React

Note: We want Arondite to bring together individuals from diverse backgrounds and perspectives. We don't expect everyone to have experience across each of these areas. Please apply even if you only partially fulfil this list.

Office vs hybrid working

We are focused on building a positive, collaborative engineering-driven culture. As a result, we believe in making the office a friendly, comfortable and fun place to be and we try to work from the office where possible. Of course, there are times when it makes sense for you to work from home. You may also need to travel to visit customers, depending on your role. But in general you should only apply to join Arondite if you're excited to come into the office and work in person by default. For most of us, this usually means at least 3 days a week.

• Highly competitive base salary
• Generous equity in EMI Options in a well-funded and growing startup
• 7% employer pension contribution
• Free meals in the office every day
• Private health and dental insurance, with opt-in cover for dependents
• Cycle to work scheme
• Relocation support
• Visa sponsorship for extremely strong candidates
• Access to any resources, equipment and training that you need to do your job in a world-class way
• The opportunity to work with and learn from exceptional colleagues with excellent academic experience and deep industry knowledge