Principal UX & Product Design Lead in London

Feeling stuck in a slow, layered environment where good ideas die in committee? If you're craving autonomy, speed, and real influence, this will feel like oxygen. Our client is a portfolio of high-growth DTC pet food brands undergoing a major digital transformation. They're rebuilding their entire tech stack in-house, phasing out a costly external agency, and bringing in a senior UX/Product Design leader who understands both design and commercial impact.

This is a chance to shape UX across multiple brands while staying hands-on. You'll partner with founders, brand teams, and an underutilised dev team that's ready to move fast once the right UX expertise is in place.

What You'll Step Into

• Multiple brand migrations currently happening
• New product initiatives that require research, testing, and rapid iteration
• A development team with serious capability but no senior designer unlocking what's possible
• Founders who want UX leadership but have no internal expert to call

Inside your first year, you'll replace a six-figure external UX budget and become the go-to person for all product design decisions. You'll ship meaningful work quickly—not sit in roadmap purgatory.

What's In It for You

• Immediate, Measurable Impact: You'll run research, design solutions, ship them, and see the results. Expect to deliver 2–3 major brand redesigns within 9–12 months, with clear improvements to conversion, subscription flows, and user satisfaction.
• Multi-Brand Variety Without Corporate Bloat: You'll work across several DTC brands, each with its own identity and challenges. No big design team. No endless review cycles. Just meaningful problems, autonomy, and speed.
• Real Creative Freedom + Budget: Have an idea? Scope it, pitch it, and run with it. Need help? Bring in freelancers. You'll have influence over how things get done—without layers slowing you down.
• Leadership Without People Management: You're not managing a team. Instead, you lead through expertise—partnering with founders, coaching brand teams, running design sprints, and guiding developers. Influence > hierarchy.
• Founders Who Actually Listen: These teams know the value of UX. They're tired of agencies that don't understand their brands. They want someone who can own the craft, validate decisions with customers, and build better journeys.
• A Chance to Build Something Scalable: You'll help develop the UX playbook across the portfolio. As the function grows, you may eventually partner with a Head of Product while owning design excellence across brands.

No micromanagement. No long approval chains. Just smart people building quickly.

What We're Looking For

• 7+ years in UX, Product Design or Experience Design
• Strong DTC/e-commerce background
• Proven experience improving conversion and subscription journeys
• Hands-on research: interviews, usability tests, analytics (Hotjar, GA4, FullStory)
• Ability to work autonomously across multiple projects
• Comfortable collaborating with devs, brand teams, and senior stakeholders
• A portfolio showing strong UX thinking and measurable impact
• You're frustrated by slow corporate systems
• You want autonomy and influence
• You combine strong design craft with data and experimentation
• You enjoy partnering closely with teams and founders
• You can scope projects and manage freelancers independently
• You're willing to travel to brand sites monthly (2–3 trips per quarter)

Probably Not for You If...

• You prefer large teams and structured corporate UX processes
• You want a Head of Design title with direct reports
• You need highly detailed briefs
• You see portfolio work or hands-on execution as beneath you

This role isn't "safe" in the corporate sense. You'll be judged on what ships and how it performs—not how many meetings you attend. But for the right person, the impact is immediate, visible, and career-defining.