Lead Experience Designer

Design Assembly; Auckland; Hybrid; NZD 110,000 - 140,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid working

Flexible hours

Birthday leave

Wellbeing support

Mobile and public transport benefits

Job summary

Design Assembly in Auckland is seeking a Lead Experience Designer to guide UX and UI across projects, shaping journeys, IA, and interaction design. You will translate complex briefs into clear experiences, create wireframes, prototypes, and design systems, and mentor junior designers.

You'll collaborate with Creative, Strategy, Technology, Production and Account teams, present ideas to clients, and champion hybrid work, flexible hours, and a supportive environment to push high-quality craft.

Qualifications

• At least 5 years’ experience in UX, UI, digital or experience design.
• Strong capability to translate business challenges into clear experiences.
• Ability to lead research, mapping journeys, and information architecture.
• Experience presenting design thinking to clients.

Responsibilities

• Shape user journeys, interaction, and information architecture.
• Create wireframes, prototypes, high-fidelity designs and design systems.
• Mentor and develop junior designers.
• Present design thinking to clients and multidisciplinary teams.
• Collaborate across Creative, Strategy, Technology, Production, and Accounts.
• Explore new technologies and platforms.

Skills

UX Design

UI Design

Mentoring

Stakeholder communication

Tools

Figma

Adobe Creative Cloud

Job description

Our client is a multi-discipline creative agency and are looking for a Lead Experience Designer to join their team at a pivotal point in the business’ evolution.

The opportunity and key areas of focus include:

• Shaping user journeys, interaction and information architecture.
• Translating complex business, brand and audience challenges into clear experiences.
• Creating wireframes, prototypes, high-fidelity designs and design systems.
• Bringing experience thinking into projects from the outset.
• Connecting brand, creative and digital experience.
• Presenting and communicating design thinking to clients and multidisciplinary teams.
• Exploring new technologies, platforms and behaviours.
• Mentoring and developing junior and mid-level designers.
• Maintaining a high standard of design craft while working to agreed timelines and budgets.

So who are you?

You’ve at least 5 years’ experience in UX, UI, digital or experience design, ideally from an agency or studio background.

A problem solver, able to work across research and discovery, mapping journeys, defining information architecture, developing interaction, prototyping, creating the visual design or building out a design system.

Comfortable working with Creative, Strategy, Technology, Production and Account teams, and equally comfortable presenting your thinking to clients.

Experience in Figma is essential, with Adobe Creative Cloud experience also expected. You’ll bring curiosity, strong creative judgement and the confidence to question the brief when you think there’s a better opportunity hiding underneath it.

This is a senior role with genuine leadership responsibility, so mentoring, sharing your knowledge and helping raise the quality of the work around you will be an important part of it.

Beyond the salary:

You’ll have the chance to work on big, interesting problems rather than simply being handed a set of screens to design. You’ll be surrounded by people from different creative and strategic disciplines, with the freedom to bring your own perspective and the opportunity to help shape how experience design is approached across the wider team.

• There’s also a strong benefits package, including hybrid working, flexible hours, birthday leave, additional leave that grows with tenure, summer hours, wellbeing support, mobile and public transport benefits and much more.