Product Designer

Company Description

Come join us and make a difference in the world!  

Discover more at www.necsws.com

Job Description

*Working location will depend on your proximity to an NEC office, if you are within 25 miles of one of our offices, it will be hybrid, if not it can be home based*

Help us redefine how complex software products get designed.

If you're a designer who enjoys complexity, questions assumptions, likes making things and believes there is nearly always a better way of solving a problem, we'd really like to hear from you.

What we have already started

We're changing how we design products by bringing design, prototyping and user learning much closer together. We want designers to be able to explore ideas, make them real and learn from users without unnecessary hand-offs or delay.

That means shortening the distance between:

Idea → Prototype → User Feedback → Learning → Better Solution

We're increasingly enabling designers to work with real coded components and functional prototypes, so ideas can be explored and tested in something much closer to the real product.

You do not need to be a software engineer or write code, but you should be excited about learning new ways of working and about the rapidly changing relationship between design, AI and software development.

You won't just use our design system. You'll help create it.

We're modernising complex, long-established software products. That creates an unusual design opportunity. You won't be joining an organisation where every interaction has already been solved and documented in a mature design system. Instead, you'll encounter difficult and sometimes unfamiliar interaction problems. We expect our designers to investigate those problems, identify patterns, establish principles, test solutions against real-world scenarios and help turn what we learn into reusable product standards and design patterns. You'll therefore be helping to shape not just individual features, but the design language of our future products.

 

Qualifications

The kind of designer we're looking for

We're deliberately not defining this role by a specific number of years' experience. We're much more interested in the complexity of the problems you've solved, how you think and the impact you've personally had.

You're analytical

You enjoy getting beneath the surface of a problem. You're comfortable absorbing complex information, identifying relationships, separating evidence from assumptions and finding structure in something that initially appears messy.

You're curious

If you don't understand something, you'll keep asking questions until you do. You want to understand how users think, why existing processes developed, what constraints are real and which ones exist simply because "that's how we've always done it." You enjoy the opportunity to tackle complex, unfamiliar problems and make sense of them.

You're a systems thinker

You don't see a product as a collection of screens. You think about workflows, behaviours, relationships, information, dependencies, states and consequences. You understand that changing one part of a complex product can have implications somewhere completely different.

You challenge constructively

You're respectful of what already exists, but not constrained by it.

You'll challenge product requirements, existing behaviours and even the premise of a problem when you believe there's a better approach. You're equally comfortable having your own ideas challenged.

You're decisive

You understand that perfect information rarely exists. You'll gather evidence where it's available, apply judgement where it isn't, explore alternatives and then make a recommendation. You'll be able to explain not just what you've designed, but

but why you believe it's the best decision given the evidence available.

You're a maker

You don't want your contribution to end with research reports, workshops and diagrams. You want to turn ideas into something tangible, put it in front of users, observe what happens and improve it.

You're adaptable

New tools and AI are changing what an individual designer can accomplish. We're looking for someone who finds that exciting rather than threatening. We don't expect you to arrive knowing every tool we'll use in the future. We do expect you to be curious enough to learn them.

You're collaborative

You don't believe good design happens in isolation. You'll work closely with product managers, engineers, domain experts and users, bringing people into the problem rather than simply presenting them with the answer. You're comfortable influencing without authority and helping a team build shared understanding around difficult decisions.

Your background

You might come from enterprise software, B2B SaaS, healthcare, financial services, engineering, logistics, government, data products or another complex professional domain. You may have worked in an established product team, a consultancy or as a contractor.

Experience in our particular software sector isn't essential. What matters more is your ability to enter an unfamiliar problem space, ask intelligent questions, understand it quickly and turn that understanding into thoughtful product decisions. You'll be comfortable working with ambiguity, using curiosity, creativity and judgement to find a way through it.

You'll build strong, long-term relationships across product and engineering and be able to make complex ideas understandable to people with different perspectives and expertise.

As the team evolves, we expect you to evolve with it, deepening your expertise, learning new capabilities and helping shape how we work.

What to expect from us

A long-term career as a fully embedded member of the team, working in an industry where the quality of the experiences we design can genuinely help people and, in some circumstances, even help save lives.

We don't want recruitment to feel like a series of tests you need to pass. Our conversations will give you the opportunity to talk openly about how you think, the problems you've tackled, the decisions you've made and the perspectives you would bring to our team.

We're genuinely interested in what makes you different and how you could become a pivotal part of our organisation. The better we're able to understand what you're capable of, what motivates you and the impact you could have, the easier it will be for both of us to decide whether this is the right fit.

Desired experience:

Fluent in Figma

Experience in creating and using design systems 

Additional Information

We pride ourselves in offering an excellent benefits package, including an above average pension scheme. When you join the team at NEC Software Solutions, you are provided with the following:

• 25 days paid holiday with the option to buy/sell (FTE)
• 4 x basic salary life assurance cover funded by NEC (with the option to increase cover at an additional cost)
• A Group Pension Plan with fantastic employer contributions 
• A selection of flexible benefits to suit your individual needs
• All colleagues get free access to LinkedIn Learning. Over 15000 courses covering a huge breadth of subjects. Learn about what you like, when you like, how you like.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION

• Candidates must be able to demonstrate a pre-existing right to work and travel within the UK. Documentary evidence will be required.
• All offers are subject to satisfactory vetting, references and occupational health checks. 
• Depending on the nature of the role a Disclosure Barring Service (DBS) check may also be required.

This position requires you to either currently have national security vetting clearance at the Security Check (SC) level or higher, Non-Police Personnel Vetting (NPPV) Level 3, or the ability to gain Enhanced Security Clearance in addition to the Baseline Personnel Security Standard.

NEC Software Solutions is an equal opportunities employer, welcoming applications from all communities. If you require any reasonable adjustments or have specific accessibility needs during the recruitment or interview process, please feel free to share these with us. We are committed to ensuring an inclusive and accommodating experience for all candidates.