Lead Product Designer

Lead Product Designer (UX/UI & Research)

London (Hybrid) | Contract | Start ASAP with potential for growth into our full time vacancy | Competitive salary The role

We’re a well-funded startup building category-defining AI for architecture, engineering and construction: an archaic industry at a critical juncture. The Building Safety Act now requires firms to evidence their design decisions, and directors carry personal liability.

Join Bite as our first in-house designer, initially for a 6 month contract, but with the potential to grow into our full time vacancy. Working strategically and directly with the head of product, founders and engineering team, you’ll own the entire design function and lead the transformation of our beta into a high-quality user experience that shapes the future of Bite’s AI for the built environment.

Why join Bite

The problem is genuinely hard. When a structural engineer changes a component in their building design model, the same component exists in drawings, schedules, specs and emails under different names, in different formats, some of which LLMs don’t understand, and with no shared identifier. Detecting these changes, predicting the downstream impacts and propagating them using AI under the engineer's supervision is the core of our product.

You'll own the UX/UI for the whole product, not a slice of it. We're a small, agile, product-led team so if we need to pivot, we will prototype, test and build rapidly. You won’t find a feature factory or dependency delays here.

Your work ships to people who pay. The platform beta is in production with signed customers that include some of the UK's leading structural engineering firms who are keen to build with us. With our tight feedback loops, you’ll have plenty of data to help drive your design decisions.

What we're building

Structural engineers work across numerous, fragmented sets of tools with no shared source of truth. When a design changes, propagating that change across files is manual, slow and error-prone, and the errors are expensive.

Bite is the change management and audit trail layer for structural engineering. The platform does three things that today take weeks of manual work: natural-language search across a project's entire file ecosystem, cross-file impact detection e.g. "I changed Column C7 in the structural model - what drawings, schedules, and specs are now out of date?" and propagation of the detected changes to all affected files.

What you’ll do

• Set the design direction for our products and raise the overall bar for craft and quality.

• Establish and scale our design foundations, including the design system and UI patterns.

• Shape the visual identity and brand across every customer touchpoint.

• Partner with customers to shape product vision, design strategy, and the experience roadmap.

• Collaborate with the head of product, founders and engineering team to define problems, explore solution spaces, validate concepts, ensure technical feasibility and ship product improvements that move the metrics that matter.

• Analyse product performance to identify friction points and drive iterative optimisation, aligning business goals with user-centred product opportunities.

• Lead comprehensive user research, including interviews, surveys, behavioural analysis, prototype testing, and usability studies, to identify user needs, confirm concepts, and produce actionable insights.

• Translate insights, data, and business needs into user journeys, wireframes, prototypes and ultimately end-to-end, intuitive design solutions that drive meaningful improvements.

• Facilitate workshops to build shared understanding and present design decisions clearly to influence strategic, experience-led discussions.

• Encode the judgment and complexity required for complex workflows under the hood, while keeping the user experience simple and seamless.

• Stay current on emerging AI trends and product patterns. Build a clear point of view on what matters, and bring that perspective into how we design at Bite.

What we need from you

• A senior or lead product designer with 5+ years of experience (preferably shipping high-quality B2B products, with expertise in AI products).

• An autonomous, opinionated builder who is comfortable being the sole designer and enjoys facilitating design sprints and principles within an engineering team.

• A creative excited to work in a fast-paced startup environment.

• A proven IC track record of expertise across UX/UI research, including interviews, surveys, usability testing, behavioural analysis, and the ability to translate insights into end-to-end digital experiences at scale.

• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills and fluency in data, using qualitative and quantitative signals to validate design decisions, measure impact, and inform tradeoffs.

• Demonstrated understanding of human-centred design principles and usability best practices, responsive design, product, technical, and business constraints in real-world environments.

• Demonstrable ability to build intuitive, user-centred experiences supported by a portfolio showing strong interaction design foundation, high-quality visual craft and attention to detail, structured problem framing and systems thinking, advanced experience working with AI-native research, design, and collaboration tools and advanced proficiency in Figma, including component-based design systems, auto layout, variables, prototyping logic, and developer collaboration workflows (e.g., Dev Mode, structured handoff).

• Evidence of shipping work that moved real business or operational metrics, and an ability to talk about those numbers fluently.

• The ability to connect design decisions and rationale to user outcomes, articulating trade-offs and measurable business impact.

• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to produce clear, concise, customer-ready documentation.

• Ability to move fluidly between the big question (what should this experience do?) and the craft-level detail that makes high-stakes decisions feel simple.

• Highly organised and adaptable, able to balance critical thinking with hands-on delivery, while contributing to the evolution of the design system and culture.

• Experience working autonomously to design complex, multi-step product flows.

What you can expect from us

• Fair and competitive salary

• Flexible, hybrid working

• Genuine ownership and an open and creative environment where you’ll help us define the future of Bite, what we work on and our culture

• Passionate, growth-minded people with an entrepreneurial mindset and the confidence to operate autonomously within a fast-moving startup environment

Inclusion at Bite

Bite Engineering is an Equal Employment Employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, colour, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or any other legally protected status. We want people from all walks of life to feel valued for their individuality, thrive in our business and share a sense of belonging. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, let us know.