Principal Product Designer

Requirements

• You don't need to tick every box, but you'll thrive if your background includes designing complex internal or enterprise tools where workflows span multiple systems.
• You may have created or contributed to design systems, delivered UX that bridges current-state and next-generation platforms, or worked in operationally critical, data-heavy environments.
• You've likely partnered with cross-functional teams, simplified multi-step workflows while respecting business rules, and communicated clearly with both technical and non-technical team members.
• Figma is your primary design tool, and you've experimented with AI tools to accelerate the design and delivery lifecycle.
• Interaction design, UI design, and workflow orchestration across multi-system environments.
• Information architecture for interconnected tools and data-heavy interfaces.
• Ability to synthesise complexity into clarity.
• Strong visual, structural, and communication design skills.
• Proficiency in Figma (components, variants, auto-layout, prototyping, design systems).
• Experience applying AI tools to accelerate design work — including rapid concept generation, layout exploration, and content population.
• Ability to use AI to support quality and consistency — such as accessibility checks, spacing validation, and design-system compliance.
• Understanding of how AI can reduce handoff friction — from generating design documentation to enabling natural-language UI drafting for faster collaborator alignment.
• Understanding of how design systems align with engineering implementation.
• You're a systems thinker who sees the whole user experience, not just the screen in front of you.
• You're energised by dynamic environments where tools and processes are actively evolving.
• You're collaborative, curious, pragmatic, and focused on outcomes — advocating for users while balancing business and technical constraints.

What the job involves

• FTSE Russell is evolving its operational ecosystem, transitioning from a complex current operating model built on multiple business-as-usual (BAU) systems toward a more unified, scalable target-state platform experience (Phoenix).
• We are seeking a UX Designer who can bring clarity, coherence, and consistency across this landscape—designing experiences that meet today's needs while shaping the future!
• This role focuses on internal users performing specialised, multi-step workflows.
• Your focus will be creating seamless, efficient, end-to-end experiences across BAU tools and emerging future-state capabilities — ensuring we avoid siloed, single-screen designs in favour of system-wide usability.
• Develop end-to-end workflows that span BAU systems and emerging Phoenix capabilities.
• Ensure every new design supports the broader operational journey — not just a localised UI improvement.
• Maintain a clear experience vision that guides teams as tools evolve and converge.
• Balance the needs of today's operating model with long-term platform objectives.
• Guide teams through ambiguity toward clear, actionable outcomes as processes, systems, and capabilities advance.
• Identify where UX can reduce complexity and support operational efficiency.
• Develop coherent interaction patterns, behaviours, and navigation structures that work across diverse tools.
• Promote reusable, consistent design across teams and products — avoiding the trap of one screen per problem.
• Contribute to and evolve a design system used across internal operational tools.
• Partner with product managers, engineers, and operations teams.
• Provide clear, evidence-based design recommendations that align technical feasibility with user value.
• Facilitate design walkthroughs, critiques, and decision-making sessions.
• Use storytelling, diagrams, prototypes, and structured artefacts to align team members.
• Translate user needs, constraints, and behavioural insights into actionable design requirements.
• Advocate for UX principles and scalable design thinking across the organisation.
• Use Figma to build high-quality prototypes, workflows, and design-system assets.
• Apply AI to accelerate design and product development — automating routine tasks like layout adjustments and component generation, and generating rapid concept variations to speed up discovery and iteration.
• Enable natural-language input to draft initial UI concepts, helping product teams visualise ideas sooner and reducing dependency on manual wireframing.
• Strengthen quality and consistency through AI-supported checks for accessibility issues, spacing inconsistencies, and deviations from design-system standards.
• Establish practices that enable faster design-to-development handoff — including AI-generated design documentation and patterns to reduce ambiguity and improve build accuracy.