Intermediate Product Designer

INTERMEDIATE PRODUCT DESIGNER

REPORTS TO: DESIGN LEAD

**Must be based in Johannesburg (On-site or Hybrid)

CORE RESPONSIBILITIES

• - Consult with clients independently - ask the right questions for unclear briefs, surface assumptions, and align with stakeholders without needing direction
• - Lead design end-to-end across discovery, definition, ideation, prototyping, testing, and delivery within agile sprint cycles
• - Facilitate working sessions, design reviews, and client presentations with professionalism and confidence
• - Translate complex regulatory, compliance, and domain constraints into clear, usable product experiences
• - Collaborate daily with product managers, engineers, QA, etc. - contributing meaningfully to backlog refinement and sprint planning
• - Champion the user: Conduct and synthesise research, usability tests, and analytics to ground design decisions in evidence
• - Produce high-fidelity prototypes, interaction specs, and developer-ready deliverables that reduce engineering ambiguity
• - Maintain and contribute to design systems, pattern libraries, and documentation
• - Manage your own time and deliverables across concurrent work streams without supervision
• - Informally mentor junior designers and model strong design craft and process standards

SKILLS & COMPETENCIES

Design Craft:

• - Mastery of Figma (Components, variables, auto-layout, prototyping, Figma Makes)
• - Strong visual design sensibility: Typography, colour, spacing, hierarchy, accessibility (WCAG 2.1 AA compliance embedded in workflow, not bolted on)

Product Thinking:

• - User-centred mindset with comfort across qualitative and quantitative research methods
• - Ability to clearly define and articulate problems before jumping to solutions
• - Experience mapping user flows, etc.
• - Data-literate: Can interpret analytics, define success metrics, and use data to prioritise decisions
• - Understanding of how design decisions affect business and technical constraints

Communication & Client Skills:

• - Excellent written and verbal communication - adapts tone for technical teams, executives, and end-users
• - Confident facilitator across workshops, sprint ceremonies, client showcases, and design crits
• - Active listener who asks precise, well-timed questions to clarify intent
• - Comfortable challenging assumptions and pushing back constructively on bad briefs or scope creep
• - Diplomatic but direct - can navigate differing opinions and land on decisions that move work forward

Agile & Delivery:

• - Experienced working embedded in cross-functional agile squads
• - Understands the sprint lifecycle and how to deliver design at the right fidelity for each stage
• - Comfortable with ambiguity - can progress work with incomplete information and course-correct efficiently
• - Proactively flags risks, dependencies, and blockers rather than waiting for them to escalate

EXPERIENCE REQUIREMENTS

• - 4–7 years of professional product design experience (agency or in-house)
• - Demonstrable experience in at least one of: Fintech, banking, insurance, payments - and/or medtech, health-tech, clinical platforms
• - Portfolio showing end-to-end case studies with clear problem framing, process, and measurable outcomes
• - Track record of working directly with clients or senior business stakeholders
• - Experience designing for mobile (iOS/Android) and web; responsive design principles second nature
• - Exposure to design system creation, governance, or significant contribution
• - Familiarity with research tooling: Maze, Lyssna, Google Analytics, etc