Lead Product Designer

True zen in product design is an exercise in art, mathematics, psychology, and empathy. We’re looking for someone who understands this and can apply their expertise to transform, staggeringly, the educational experience of students the world over.

This isn’t about ‘slapping on a coat of paint’ at the end. It isn’t about ‘making it look pretty.’ This is about sculpting the experience of learning for thousands of students in the UK today. It’s about helping us achieve our mission to transform the learning experience of millions of students across the globe.

This position plays a key strategic role, working directly with the Director of Education & Product and laying the foundations for the product design function. You’ll be our first senior designer, and you’ll help make learning feel effortless and certain.

Up Learn supports a hybrid working environment with two days in the office per week (one team day and one company day) and the rest is up to you!

About us

At Up Learn we use AI and cognitive science to ensure every student can achieve an A* regardless of their background. We guarantee students academic success, or their money back.

Since launching in 2016 we’ve achieved 97% A/A success rate (with some students starting from grades as low as Ds and even Us), helped over 40,000 students, delivered over 10,000 scholarships to disadvantaged students, and achieved a 4.9 rating on Trustpilot. We’ve raised over £3m from exceptional investors including VC Forward Partners, the Chairman of Virgin, the Former President of American Express, and the Branson family, to improve and expand our product, and create our next wave of A Level and GCSE courses, expanding our reach to millions of new students every year.

About you

You're a talented all-round product designer who crafts delightful end-to-end solutions for mobile and web. The experiences you create are intuitive: when users interact with your designs they just know how it works, and it feels awesome. If you designed supermarkets, someone walking in to purchase yuzu extract for the first time would find it in moments, as if by magic.

You know the impact of visual design, and weave pixel-perfect works of art that stand out in a crowded marketplace.

You’re experienced, you have a point of view, and you’re comfortable defending it. You know how to leverage expertise throughout a company and incorporate it in your designs; you’re deft at bringing key stakeholders with you while being stalwart against ‘design-by-committee.’

You see things from the user’s perspective, and advocate passionately for them. You explain clearly to others the design decisions you make. Most of all, you rate something like ‘impact’ high on your priorities as you look for a new role, and so you’re excited to work in a place where your designs make all the difference. In your first months of working you will change students’ lives: students who were going to fail their exams will succeed thanks to you and the work you do. Students will make it to university because of your efforts. Students who thought they weren’t ‘smart enough’ will learn that they are.

More on your first months with us, below.

What you’ll do in the first 12 months

• Product Experience: Reimagine the ideal product experience from the ground up. Implement an approach to UX design and information architecture that means students spend 0 cognitive effort on navigating Up Learn, and maximum effort on learning. Work with Learning Executives to understand how cognitive and behavioural science can be applied to education, and then help them maximise our learning effectiveness metrics: maximising probability of success while minimising the time needed
• User Interface: Create gorgeous UI designs that students want to show off; make them feel proud to own a licence to Up Learn and want to tell their friends, helping us increase customer acquisition
• User Research: Use qualitative research methods to tell us what we don’t know about who our students are, how they use Up Learn, and where we’re failing them. Advise us and inform our Product Roadmap, leading to new features and experiences that delight
• Design Systems: Lay the groundwork for a future Design Team by building our first pattern library. Extend it into a complete atomic design system. Partner with engineers to incorporate pre-written code into the system, helping us launch more product, faster, and reach more students, sooner
• Grow the Business: Audit the end-to-end purchase flow for a new student, or parent, from website to checkout. Find every pain point, every barrier to falling in love with Up Learn, and every blocker to purchase. Relentlessly optimise the purchase flow, dramatically increasing our business metrics Teamwork: You won’t be doing this alone! Work with a team of unusually diverse expertise who are whole-heartedly passionate about their work, including Learning Executives, Data Scientists, Animators, Product Managers and Engineers

Requirements

If you don’t meet every requirement below, but you still believe you’re the right person for the job, we strongly encourage you to apply.

• Typically 5+ years of relevant design experience expected
• Experience working in one or more start-up environments
• Experience and comfort balancing multiple projects and competing demands
• Experience planning, and executing user research, including usability testing
• Experience designing for web and mobile (with a focus on web)
• Demonstrable expertise in UX
• Confident creating anything on the spectrum from low-fidelity wireframes to highly polished designs
• Extremely strong communication skills and self-awareness
• Dedication to personal and professional self-development
• Thrive in a culture of feedback - giving and receiving it
• You care about our mission of solving education and improving students’ lives

Benefits

• Salary: £75,000 - £85,000 plus equity share options (an ownership stake in the company)
• A fun, friendly, high-calibre team that trusts you and gives you the freedom to be brilliant
• The chance to define the future of education and make a meaningful contribution to the lives of thousands of students
• Influence, trust and impact inside a well funded VC-backed startup that's scaling
• Hybrid working environment with two days in the office per week (one team day and one company day) and the rest is up to you!
• A spacious and bright private office in Old Street, with delicious coffee, selection of teas and unlimited snacks and drinks
• Regular team outings like go-karting and skiing, flexible working hours, and ability to work remotely
• A range of additional benefits such as employer matched pension, level 6 (highest level) dental insurance
• We offer 26 days of bookable paid holiday, plus UK bank holidays, plus unlimited ‘extra days’ - that’s a minimum of 34 days per year!

At Up Learn we welcome everyone and are committed to building inclusive teams. We celebrate differences, encourage everyone to join us and be themselves at work. We always follow the guidelines of the Equality Act in all aspects of recruitment, selection, employment, training, development and promotion opportunities at Up Learn.

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