Product Design Lead

Empowering Africa’s tomorrow, together…one story at a time.

With over 100 years of rich history and strongly positioned as a local bank with regional and international expertise, a career with our family offers the opportunity to be part of this exciting growth journey, to reset our future and shape our destiny as a proudly African group.

Product Design Lead (PDL) manages the day-to-day execution of one or several customer design projects in Absa while guiding and developing individual team members. PDL works directly with different business stakeholders and takes ownership of the overall project and the delivery of exceptional customer experience. She/he will make an important contribution to the design work of the team and work closely with the stakeholders to ensure the project delivery meets both the customer and the business needs.

A successful PDL is a self-starter with passion for high quality customer design. She/He has a strong track record of delivering complex, creative and innovative design projects that elevate the customer experience. He/she can demonstrate strong communication capabilities and ability to influence and lead others in even high-pressure situations.

• Engage with business stakeholders to clarify the needs and requirements of the business and, jointly with the Design director, establish a clear scope, creative brief and project plan for projects
• Manage the day-to-day delivery of the design output against the plan, continuously interrogating the design quality and customer experience to deliver high-quality output in each stage of the project
• Work closely together with the business and technical stakeholders to ensure the project aligns to their needs and requirements
• Take ownership of the customer experience within the project and constructively challenge business and technical decisions to ensure the best possible experience for the customers
• Lead the project team by aligning, managing and coaching the designers, prototype engineers, copywriters and other possible team members, supporting them in setting goals, overcoming obstacles and delivering outstanding outcomes, while ensuring a fully unified end product
• Develop and nurture relationships across teams and disciplines to promote collaboration and efficiency
• Actively seek ways to measure impact of the design to the customer and business, reporting the insights to the senior management and business stakeholders

• Create creative, innovative and high-quality design solutions to create a world-class customer experience across the projects in Absa
• Give a significant contribution to the design within the project, while providing thought leadership to the overall team and business
• Take ownership in applying design thinking and best practice standards in developing design options and narrowing down the final solution
• Leverage insight and data, such as market analysis, customer feedback, and user research analytics to ensure that products/services/solutions are truly designed around the customer and deliver improved experience; surface and share insights to the broader team
• Design scenarios, mock-ups and prototypes as necessary for each stage of the project, continuously iterating to achieve the optimal output
• Align the design to the design standards and brand guidelines to ensure consistent experience to the customer across the Absa ecosystem

• Coach and mentor designers in the project team and design office as a whole
• Continuously build your own expertise by, for example, actively seeking and incorporating feedback, and following external trends and best practices
• Contribute the knowledge building of the entire team by actively sharing insights and success stories; and providing feedback and ideas across different design projects

• Degree or diploma in a Design discipline such as product, industrial, service, interaction, digital or visual design or equivalent qualification (NQF level
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• Minimum of 5 years of Technical experience
• Track record of delivering complex, high quality…