Product Designer (Midweight)

As a Product Designer at AKQA Leap, your responsibilities include delivering thoughtful design deliverables like wireframes, user flows, UI designs, and prototypes. You will collaborate closely with other designers, product managers, and developers to iterate on design solutions while participating in activities like workshops and customer journey mapping. This role also involves presenting your work to the team and clients, ensuring designs meet both user and business needs.

To qualify for the Midweight Product Designer position at AKQA Leap, candidates should have a portfolio that showcases their design thinking and experience in creating UX design artefacts. Candidates should ideally have a background in collaborating with design teams, an understanding of design systems, and familiarity with tools like Figma and Miro. Previous employment in an established design team is a plus.

The salary range for the Midweight Product Designer position at AKQA Leap is between £40,000 and £55,000 per annum, depending on experience and qualifications. This competitive salary is complemented by a variety of benefits aimed at ensuring employee satisfaction and development.

AKQA Leap actively promotes continuous professional growth for its Product Designers through initiatives like an annual learning budget, opportunities for personal development, and participation in design community activities. You’ll work collaboratively with your line manager to set career goals aligned with your aspirations, reinforcing our commitment to fostering an environment where everyone can grow and thrive.

The work culture at AKQA Leap is collaborative, inclusive, and people-focused. As a Product Designer, you’ll be part of a team that values curiosity, empathy, and innovation. We strive to create a supportive environment where diverse perspectives are appreciated, allowing everyone to contribute meaningfully to projects and inspire one another in the process.

Product Designers at AKQA Leap commonly use tools like Figma and Miro to create and collaborate on design solutions. These tools facilitate visual design processes and enhance teamwork, allowing designers to effectively translate concepts into tangible design artefacts that meet user needs.

AKQA Leap offers a comprehensive range of employee benefits including flexible leave options, enhanced maternity and paternity pay, private medical and dental insurance, an annual learning budget, and mental health support. These benefits are designed to promote work-life balance and contribute to a healthy, satisfying work environment.

When asked about your design process as a Product Designer, consider outlining key steps such as research, brainstorming, wireframing, prototyping, and user testing. Highlight how you integrate user feedback into your designs and ensure your solutions address both user needs and business goals.

A good response would detail specific challenges like balancing user needs with technical constraints or working within tight deadlines. Discuss how you approached these challenges, what strategies you implemented, and the positive outcomes that resulted from your solutions.

Explain your approach to ensuring user-centered designs, such as conducting user research, creating personas, and performing usability testing. Emphasize the importance of understanding the target audience’s needs and how this informs your design decisions.

Share a specific example showcasing your teamwork skills. Describe the project's goal, your role in the team, the collaborative process, and how effective communication contributed to a successful outcome. Make sure to highlight the importance of feedback in the design iteration process.

You could mention various methods like following industry leaders, participating in workshops, attending design meetups, and engaging with online design communities. Stress the importance of continuous learning and experimentation in your growth as a designer.

Discuss your openness to receiving and giving feedback as a crucial part of the design process. Illustrate how constructive criticism has helped improve your work and foster collaboration within the team, ultimately leading to better design outcomes.

Describe your method for balancing creativity and functionality, such as creating designs that are visually engaging while prioritizing usability and accessibility. Provide examples where innovative design solutions met user needs effectively.

Discuss your experience in creating and using design systems, including how they contribute to efficiency and consistency in design. Share examples of projects where you integrated design systems and the impact it had on the overall product.

Choose a design project you’re particularly proud of and outline the problem it solved, your design approach, and any positive results from user feedback or performance metrics. This helps the interviewer understand the impact of your work.

Share sources of inspiration that stimulate your creativity—these might include nature, art, other designers, or user experiences. It’s a great opportunity to convey your passion for design and your inquisitive nature.