Senior Product Designer (Newcastle)

Nexl is looking for a Senior Product Designer to own design across the shared foundations of our product. This means the surfaces and systems that every user touches and every product team depend on, user management, notifications, permissions, settings, and other cross-cutting experiences, as well as the design system that underpins how the whole product is built. This is a newly created team, and you'll be one of its founding members. The team is deliberately lean: you'll work directly with our Head of Engineering, who acts as both technical lead and product voice for the squad. There's no PM layer. You'll own the problem space alongside engineering, identifying what needs to be built, shaping scope, and driving decisions from first principles. This is a dual-track role. Your primary responsibility is stewarding Nexl's design system, setting standards, evolving components, and ensuring consistency scales as the product and team grow. But you will also assist our internal shared systems team, shipping great product design for features that are used by all product teams. You'll report to the Head of Product and collaborate with designers across the wider product org. This is a role for someone energized by greenfield ownership, comfortable operating without a playbook, and motivated by the chance to shape both a product domain and a design foundation from the ground up. What You'll Own & Do
- Own the full design lifecycle for shared platform surfaces: user management, notifications, permissions, settings, and other cross-functional areas used across Nexl's squads.
- Contribute to defining the problem space for your domain: identify gaps, surface opportunities, and shape solutions working closely with the Head of Engineering on prioritisation and scope.
- Partner closely with the Head of Engineering through discovery and delivery, from early problem framing to production-ready UI.
- Translate complex, interconnected workflows into experiences that feel simple and consistent to end users.
- Run discovery and validation independently, usability testing, customer interviews, assumption testing and iterate based on what you learn.
- Communicate design decisions and trade-offs clearly to engineers and senior stakeholders, influencing direction rather than just presenting work. Design system ownership
- Own and evolve Nexl's design system: tokens, components, patterns, documentation, and contribution guidelines.
- Work with designers across product squads to drive adoption, resolve inconsistencies, and keep the system aligned with the live product.
- Partner with engineering to ensure design system components are implemented accurately and maintained in code.
- Establish governance: how components are proposed, reviewed, versioned, and deprecated as the product scales. What We're Looking For Musthaves
- Proven experience as a Product Designer on a digital product (B2B SaaS experiences strongly preferred).
- Ability to design for shared, reusable surfaces that serve multiple teams and user types beyond individual flows.
- Hands-on experience building, contributing to, or owning a design system in a product environment.
- Strong across the full design lifecycle: problem discovery, flows, wireframes, high-fidelity UI, and prototypes.
- Comfortable contributing to problem definition and scope alongside engineering leadership, without relying on a handed-down brief.
- Proficient in using AI tools to accelerate design workflows, prototype iteration, and synthesis of customer insight.
- Comfortable running usability testing, customer interviews, and discovery sessions independently to inform design decisions.
- Demonstrated ability to translate complex workflows and systems into clear, intuitive experiences.
- Experience working directly and closely with engineers, including bridging design intent to implementation.
- Confident explaining design thinking, challenging decisions constructively, and influencing direction at the senior level. Nice to haves
- Experience designing complex, data-heavy, or workflow-driven products.
- Familiarity with design token architecture and tooling (e.g. Style Dictionary, Figma Variables).
- Exposure to accessibility auditing and WCAG standards.
- Experience in LegalTech, FinTech, or other professional-services software environments. What Success Looks Like
- Within 6 months, all new UI is built on the design system. Within 12 months, 75% of existing UI has been migrated to the component library.
- The design system is healthier, adopted by every product team, and more scalable because of your stewardship.
- Engineers have what they need to move fast without losing quality or design intent.
- Platform surfaces are consistently well-designed, well-documented, and easy for other teams to build on.
- You're a connective force across the design team, raising the bar on consistency and quality across the whole product.
- You actively contribute to defining the right problems for your domain, not just executing against a brief.
- Design decisions are grounded in evidence, user research, and product context, not assumptions.
- You help build a stronger design culture at Nexl, one that is more customer-led, outcome-focused, and accountable. Life at Nexl
- High growth. A scaling environment with autonomy, ownership, and visible impact.
- ESOP. Employee stock options so you share in the upside.
- Tools & tech. Contemporary, AI-first ways of working to help you move faster and smarter, plus a work laptop.
- Birthday leave. Take a paid "NexlDay" during the week of your birthday.
- Transparent by default. Fortnightly all-hands with strategy, metrics, wins, and learnings.
- Purposeful connection. Team offsites and meet-ups.
- Values-led culture. Guided by TheNexlerWay, our values and operating principles that define who we are, how we work, and how we win together. Our Values
- Committed to Care
- We genuinely care about the work we do and the industry we do it for.
- Human at the Core
- Relationships and empathy guide everything we do.
- Different with Purpose
- We're not afraid to stand out. We innovate boldly and deliberately. Apply on Kit Job: kitjobau.com/job/3r159i