Product Designer (12 months)

Vanguard; Manchester; Hybrid; GBP 45,000 - 60,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading investment firm in Manchester seeks a Product Designer to enhance customer digital experiences. The role involves working with a multi-disciplinary team to translate complex financial concepts into user-friendly designs, focusing on public websites. Candidates should have proven design experience, familiarity with tools like Figma and AEM, and an adaptable, proactive mindset. This position offers a hybrid working model to foster collaboration and learning.

Qualifications

• Proven experience in the design space including public websites, apps, and dashboards.
• Experience in finance or other regulated industries is preferred.
• Ability to write in plain English for complex financial concepts.

Responsibilities

• Translate customer needs into effective design solutions.
• Collaborate with a multi-disciplinary team to create compelling digital experiences.
• Engage in research activities to inform design decisions.

Skills

Content Design

Product Design

Accessibility

Figma

Research Skills

Communication

Agile Methodologies

Tools

AEM

Storybook

Prototyping tools

Job description

Project Contractor Project Contractor

Product Designer (Content Specialist)

The opportunity

At Vanguard, we’re passionate about giving UK investors the best chance of investor success. We do this by creating intuitive digital experiences that inform, compel, and delight our clients. In this role, you’ll be working in a specific value stream within our customer’s end to end lifecycle and you’ll be collaborating with a multi-disciplinary team (Product Manager, Content Designer, Data analysts, UX researchers, scrum teams). Your job will involve understanding what our customers need / want and, in collaboration with other designer, solve problems and design sensible experiences.

Public Website Design Focus

This role is focused on our Public Website so we are looking for a Designer with a great blend of Content Design & Product Design skills. The purpose of our website is to attract, engage and educate investors. Experience in or with investing and / or educational / marketing design is therefore preferred.

Your Design skills

• You’re familiar with the gov.uk content guidelines, you know content best practice and you’re an expert at writing for accessibility
• You’re comfortable working with Design Systems (Storybook & Figma) and readily able to build prototypes & designs from these building blocks
• You’re familiar (and ideally experienced) with AEM for Content Management
• You have the ability to translate complex financial / investments concepts into simple, plain English language
• You’re able to produce different types of content (microcopy, conversational, product marketing, help / instructional) and you’re able to adapt your content to the medium
• You understand that consistency is important but also that, at times, breaking away from it is necessary to create meaningful content
• You contribute to research activities by helping with research plans, discussion guide, build prototypesand insight synthesis
• You autonomously drive the production of design work and lead the sign-off process with Product, business stakeholders, legal and compliance
• You proactively engage with your immediate stakeholder group (PM, Marketing, UX, Developers) but also other relevant SMEs (legal, compliance, business strategy, customer services, etc)
• You engage with the Content and Design practice through show and tell and contribute to the betterment of the Design craft as a whole
• You understand UX, the Double Diamond and the Agile delivery mindset
• You work off hypothesis and problem statements
• You’re highly proficient in Figma – this is our workspace and where you’ll need to execute all design work

Your Designer skills

• As our team is lean, you’re able to work on multiple projects at the same time and are comfortable with content-switching
• You’re an adaptable designer and you’re able to flex your ways of working depending on the nature of projects and the team you work with (mixture of proactive and reactive work)
• You’re able to work autonomously, you know what to do without being given specific tasks
• You’re proactive, you take ownership of the work and you’re constantly looking to help and add value
• You’re curious, you relentlessly ask questions, you’re obsessed with understanding how our products / operational processes work and you’re keen to keep learning (whether that’s insight or ways of working)
• You build trust and work in symbiosis with other designers in the team, through constant and proactive communication
• You’re open-minded and selfless, you recognise that design is a team sport and you welcome scrutiny and design debates
• You’re able to run the Design conversation, from conceptualisation to leading meetings and workshop, connecting with the relevant SMEs, sourcing customer insight, etc
• You’re able to think strategically about your work and its impact beyond your immediate value stream
• You’re thorough and considered in your decision making, you seek to understand the root cause of problems and you don’t rush to solutions
• You’re comfortable sharing and presenting your ideas and solutions

What this role isn’t

Our team doesn’t currently work on anything related to social media, blogging or content marketing.

Experience

• Proven experience in the design space (ie, writing for journeys, app, public website, dashboards, etc)
• Experience in finance, asset management or other regulated industries strongly recommended

How We Work

Vanguard has implemented a hybrid working model for the majority of our crew members, designed to capture the benefits of enhanced flexibility while enabling in-person learning, collaboration, and connection. We believe our mission-driven and highly collaborative culture is a critical enabler to support long-term client outcomes and enrich the employee experience.