Lead Product Designer

Lead Product Designer

We're looking for a Lead Product Designer to help shape the future of Spendesk's product experience, with a particular focus on AI-powered and automation-driven workflows.

You'll work across several connected squads or a significant product area, partnering with Product Managers, Engineers, and designers to create a coherent experience and help teams focus on the most valuable customer and business problems.

This role requires strong product thinking, systems thinking, and design leadership. You'll connect insights and opportunities across teams, influence product direction, and bring clarity to complex problems that cannot be solved within the boundaries of a single squad.

You'll remain hands-on, leading critical discovery and design initiatives while establishing the principles, standards, and shared understanding that enable others to make strong decisions independently.

As a senior individual contributor, you'll lead through your craft, judgment, communication, and influence rather than formal people management. You'll also help other designers grow through coaching, feedback, and sponsorship.

Location:

London, Paris, Barcelona, or Berlin, with a flexible hybrid work model.

The Product Design team plays a strategic role in shaping Spendesk's platform and user experience. We simplify complex financial and operational workflows, helping finance teams, managers, employees, and administrators make informed decisions with greater efficiency, visibility, and confidence.

Designers operate as strategic partners within cross-functional teams. We collaborate with Product, Engineering, Data, and other stakeholders throughout discovery, problem framing, experimentation, delivery, and iteration. We conduct research directly with users and use qualitative and quantitative evidence to influence product decisions.

We care deeply about systems thinking, information architecture, and consistency across the platform. As AI and automation become central to financial operations, we're exploring how intelligent systems can help users move faster while maintaining transparency, trust, and control.

• Shape product and experience direction across several connected squads or a significant product area.
• Connect customer insight, product strategy, business objectives, and technical context to identify and prioritise high-impact opportunities.
• Align cross-functional teams around shared problems, experience principles, intended outcomes, and success measures.
• Lead complex design initiatives across discovery, exploration, delivery, measurement, and iteration while remaining hands-on where your expertise has the greatest impact.
• Create coherent end-to-end experiences and resolve systemic UX issues spanning workflows, features, and squad boundaries.
• Establish and uphold strong standards for interaction design, information architecture, accessibility, content, and visual quality.
• Improve cross-squad collaboration by surfacing dependencies, facilitating decisions, and helping teams navigate ambiguity and trade-offs.
• Coach and support designers, helping them grow in autonomy, craft, product thinking, and organisational influence.

• Significant experience designing complex digital products in cross-functional teams, typically gained over seven or more years.
• Demonstrated experience leading design across multiple squads, interconnected workflows, or a substantial product domain.
• Strong product and strategic thinking, with the ability to connect user needs, business priorities, and technical constraints.
• Excellent systems thinking, interaction design, and information architecture skills, particularly across complex or data-heavy experiences.
• A strong track record of using research and evidence to frame problems and influence product direction.
• Excellent communication, facilitation, and storytelling skills, with the ability to align teams and influence senior stakeholders.
• The ability to remain hands-on while creating the direction, context, and standards that enable others to work autonomously.
• Experience coaching designers and raising the quality and effectiveness of design…