Principal Designer

About The Role

Hippo is a rapidly growing AI enabled digital consultancy passionate about building and delivering transformative digital solutions for a diverse range of Public and Private sector clients. We are recruiting for a Principal Design Consultant to support our mission. We work at the intersection of strategy, design, and technology to solve complex problems and create lasting value. Our collaborative and agile culture empowers our teams to make a genuine Impact.

As a Principal Consultant, you will be a strategic design leader and an experienced practitioner. Your scope extends beyond individual products, services or delivery teams; you will be responsible for shaping user strategy across programmes or organisations, defining design standards, and helping to drive the successful delivery of valuable, user-centred outcomes  will lead design in complex environments, influence organisational strategy, and ensure user-centred thinking is embedded across disciplines.

You will bring clarity to systemic problems, align teams around outcomes for users, and drive design direction in challenging client environments.

You will mentor and guide Senior and Lead design practitioners, contribute to the development and evolution of our design capability, and act as a visible leader within both Hippo and our client organisations.

At this level, you will play a key role in strengthening and evolving our design proposition, supporting business growth, and influencing senior stakeholders at executive level.

We are in particular encouraging candidates with extensive experience of using AI within their practice, and/or working on products or services that embed AI in how they operate.

• Be part of the leadership of our most complex and strategically important client engagements, driving a user centred approach across all projects and adding design value across a programme or account
• Act as a trusted advisor to senior client stakeholders - including executive leadership - using data, insight and design methodologies to influence decision-making and shape long-term service strategy to support better outcomes for service users.
• Lead teams to design services that meet the needs of all users and adhere to GDS (where appropriate, accessibility and other relevant standards
• Be part of the leadership team of Hippo’s design profession, leading substantive internal work streams to us to grow the profession to support a period of rapid business growth
• Work with other design leaders to evolve our practices to ensure we retain our strong reputation for high quality user centred design and delivery as the market evolves with AI
• Recruit, lead and mentor Senior and Lead design practitioners, strengthening capability and fostering a culture of continuous learning and improvement
• Support business growth through pre-sales activity, shaping our propositions, contributing to bids, and helping clients understand the value of user-centred design and delivery
• Represent Hippo’s design capability internally and externally, contributing to thought leadership, industry engagement, and promotion of our design practice and user centred delivery approach

• Extensive experience in design at a Principal level across a range of complex delivery environments, and with a range of clients
• Experience working effectively within and leading multidisciplinary teams using user-centred design approaches throughout the product or service lifecycle
• Confidence operating in technical environments, translating complex concepts into clear design direction that delivers measurable outcomes.
• Expert consultancy and leadership skills, and confidence in exploring problem spaces with clients to determine most appropriate…