đ Full-time with flexible hours considered
đ Hybrid (London-based office)
You must be eligible and willing to visit your team and clients in the UK when deemed reasonable. We also expect a reasonable timezone overlap for when you need to collaborate with the team (mainly in UK/Europe) and clients (mainly in Europe & US). We are open to discussing how all of this can fit with your individual circumstances.
About Reason
Weâre a digital product studio of 60+ friendly and focused individuals partnering with global brands in Retail, Financial Services, Education and more.
We build long term partnerships with organisations seeking digital transformation. With user-centred design at the core of our approach, we work hard to understand their underlying needs, exploring the most effective route to deliver change that matters.
With full-stack capability, our design and engineering teams work together closely to bring designs to life. This helps us accelerate from problem to product at scale, to drive value and create a lasting impact.
**Reason has recently joined the Paragon family, joining forces with DCX to drive their design & digital transformation agenda. This presents a unique opportunity to scale and grow our design culture and capability ***
The Role
As Head of Product Design you will be responsible for leading the Product design practice at Reason.
This role involves direct line management of the product design team (currently 4 people) and broader leadership responsibilities across the whole design team. As a member of the design leadership team you will help shape the structure and direction of the team now and as we grow.
What is important to us:
- Mentoring, developing and pushing the creative craft of our team
- Fostering a culture of creativity, exploration and design
- Experience in leading pitches and proposals
- Excellent organisation & communication skills
- Aligns with and shares our company values
What we would love to see, donât worry it's not a deal-breaker if not:
- Time spent inside a small, design-driven agency along with examples of live-work created during this time
- A desire to have a voice and opinion within, and contribute to the industry
- A desire to remain hands-on, we are a doing company you will be on the tools from time to time
- Experience in branding, comms strategy and how this can apply to digital product
- Can develop strong relationships with clients
What weâve been up to recently:
Itâs always hard to know whether this is the right role for you, so to help we thought we would share what you would have been working on had you been working at Reason for the last 6 months:
For startups:
- Helped launch ForMore a fintech business aimed at fixing long-term savings and retirement - work included brand, product strategy and helping them build their founding team.
- Helped Yuup.co launch a marketplace for local experiences in Bristol.
For our clients:
- Re-designed the way people sight-see in major cities with Go-City, creating a brand new design system that spans web, mobile apps and internal tools
- Harnessed machine learning to transform the way Levi Strauss & Co plan demand for their products, creating design patterns to visualise and drill down complex data
- Planned a rapid product innovation and experimentation programme for global language school
For our teams:
- Launched Reason design team core skills and progression framework
Meet your team
Michael Dingle is our Design Director and co-founder, he is an active member of the design team, always excited to hear ideas, feedback and thoughts from the team and happy to talk about where weâre heading as a company.
Youâll be working alongside Micha Nicheva (leading Design Strategy) and Alex Baxevanis (leading Experience Design). Both have a lot of experience across different aspects of design, and are excited about cross-discipline collaboration.
Alex Baxevanis leads Experience Design. He advocates for sustainable design involvement across long-running programmes of work, making sure we keep adding value to users through continuous discovery & validation.
Micha Nicheva leads Design Strategy and champions all things service design, insights, speculative futures and sustainability. She is an active advocate for collaborative ways of working, diversity equity and inclusion across Reason.
Youâll be joining our talented team of 11 designers (plus freelancers) spread across Strategy, Experience and Product - Meet the team
Want to know a bit more about the team? You can check out who we are and what it's like to work at Reason here
Your day-to-day
It's always tricky to say what you will be doing day to day. A good way to look at it is your time will be spread across three key activities; team development, Reason growth & client engagements.
The exact time split will vary depending on what is happening at the time, but here is an idea of what we expect from you across these three areas*.
Team development
You will be accountable for the professional development of your team, striving to create an environment that develops industry-recognised talent and enables people to do the best work of their careers.
During the course of ongoing management responsibilities, youâll:
- Partner with design leadership to create an engaged, enthusiastic design team culture; developing standards and practices, team planning and mentorship of both full-time and freelance designers.
- Share your skills and learnings with the team, mentoring team members.
- Fortnightly 1:1 with your team members and annual appraisals
- Give and take constructive feedback from those around you.
- Actively participate in nurturing our design team culture.
Reason growth
Head of Product Design is a leadership position, you will be working directly with the Reason leadership team to advance Reasonâs strategy and go to market.
During the course of continued Reason leadership responsibilities, youâll:
- Work with commercial and client partnership teams to deliver more value to existing customers as well as target new customers.
- Support MD and other directors on the Reason design proposition, services and go-to-market strategy.
- Form and share a point of view on key design topics and challenges both internally and externally.
- Facilitate internal (within Reason and DCX) and client learning opportunities to communicate our approach to design and the value it creates.
Client engagements
As a Head of Product Design, youâll be responsible for the Product Design side of client engagements. Youâll ensure we design and build products that are effective, efficient and delight users.
During the course of a typical client engagement, youâll:
- Collaborate with Strategists and Experience designers on early-stage discovery projects to understand the needs of our clients and their users.
- Own the success of project design efforts and provide hands-on senior-level leadership to ensure smooth collaboration between strategy, engineering and client teams.
- Support the design team to untangle complex problems with varying levels of fidelity. Youâll decide the correct tool and means to communicate these ideas.
- Present to client stakeholders on approach and direction, engage and get buy-in to the vision set out by the team.
- Set the creative vision and direction for projects, and challenge clients and the team to be bold and ambitious in our work.
- Inspire the team and our clients in new directions and ways of working.
- If you have any new ideas or experiences that you think will add to this, please let us know.
About you
Youâll need to show us that you:
- Are up to date with product design practices, methodologies and trends.
- Positive leadership and a cultural standard setter.
- Have experience in engaging and leading client relationships.
- Ability to estimate design effort against loose requirements or early-stage briefs, can prioritise, manage time and work within timelines.
- Have experience in managing and supporting individuals or a team.
- An exceptional communicator and storyteller.
- Are an expert visual communicator with the confidence to push new visual and product ideas.
- A passion for applying strategy, design and technology to help businesses change the way they interact with customers, each other and the world.
If youâre worried that you donât tick all of these boxes, please speak to us anyway. We know the âperfect candidateâ doesnât exist and we love it when people bring their own perspectives, skills and approaches to Reason.
Weâll encourage you to develop in areas youâre passionate about, and we will support you in exploring areas youâd like to grow in.
Our vision for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
At Reason, we aim to create an environment where everyone can be themselves and is valued for who they truly are. We know diverse teams help us produce our best work and actively hire for cultural growth, welcoming and embracing people of all identities, stories and backgrounds. We are thoughtful, listen carefully and work hard to be inclusive of all people.
While we are moving in the right direction, we know there are areas we need to improve on. We are humble enough to recognise this and appreciate this requires regular reflection, moments of personal challenge, discomfort and continuous improvement in our policies, practises and initiatives.
The bottom line is this; Reason is committed to making a measurable positive impact on people's everyday lives, and we strive to contribute toward a more open and fair society.
What youâll get
đ° A fair reward for your effort
- An industry benchmarked salary
- 8% pension contribution
- Annual profit share
âď¸ Time off
- 25 days paid time off (full-time equivalent) & bank holidays
- An extra 10 days paid holiday (full-time equivalent) every three years
- Enhanced parental compensation packages
đ Investment in your personal development
- Development budget for training and conferences
- Access to the Reason library & book purchases
- Co-created career development plan
- Regular company-wide training
â¤ď¸ Contribution to your health and wellness
- Significant annual wellness budget
- Monthly social events
- Independent Employee Assistance Programme to help out with issues including mental health, money, HR
- Cycle-to-work scheme
đ§âđť The right tools to do your job
- Standing desk, headphones, input devices and software licenses
- Annual technology budget to experiment with new kit
What next?
- Decide if this job is for you (if you have any questions, please email us at careers@reason.co).
- Apply by emailing us at careers@reason.co with a summary of your experience (including some samples of your work) and telling us why youâre excited about this role.
- If your experience seems relevant, weâll invite you for an interview. We normally have a 2-round interview process:
- First-round is for you to talk about yourself, your career and ambitions, and to ask us questions about Reason.
- In the second round, weâll ask you to present some of your previous work to us, explaining the outcomes and the challenges youâve had to overcome to get there.
