Design Lead, London

About Marloo Financial advisers carry an extraordinary responsibility. They guide people through the most important financial decisions of their lives. For too long the tools available to them have been unworthy of that responsibility. We are building the AI partner that changes that. Not a notetaker, but the infrastructure the profession has always needed and never had. Backed by Blackbird Ventures, we have onboarded 650+ firms across six countries with almost zero churn in under a year. We are at the beginning of something significant and the momentum speaks for itself.

The role Financial advice software has been clunky for decades. We are building something that feels like a pleasure to use, and that is as much a design challenge as a product one. You will design the future of Marloo alongside Hardy and Shak (co‑founders) and the engineering team. As our first full‑time designer, you will own the full spectrum from product UX to brand. You are not inheriting a process. You are creating one, and you will shape how design is embedded in our culture and our decisions. Product is the primary focus: crafting an experience that makes advisers feel like they have a brilliant partner in their corner. Brand and marketing sit alongside, and you will have the judgement to know when to go deep yourself, when to bring in external help, and what is not worth doing at all.

What You’ll Do

• Lead the design of our AI‑powered product. Make something genuinely complex feel intuitive, elegant, and useful.
• Work shoulder to shoulder with engineers and the founders to ship features that are beautiful and functional.
• Build design systems that scale across Mac, iOS, and web.
• Spend real time with users (advisers, paraplanners, support staff) to investigate use cases, test features, and build your own sense of what to build next.
• Move between explore mode (wild ideas, fast prototypes in Figma, Cursor, v0) and exploit mode (nailing interaction, typography, motion on the features that earn it).

Brand and Visual Identity

• Establish a cohesive brand identity: trustworthy, intelligent, beautifully human.
• Design the key brand assets: website, marketing, visual guidelines.
• Hold the line on consistency across every touchpoint.
• Know when to bring in agencies or freelancers while owning the quality bar.

This could be a good fit if

• You have 5+ years shipping beautifully designed products to real users. Senior or staff level.
• You are a systems thinker who has worked on open‑ended tools. Architecting a flexible system is as much the challenge as any individual screen.
• You are a natural prototyper. "Let’s try it and see how it feels" is one of your most used phrases.
• You are comfortable across web, Mac, and mobile, and you understand what good looks like on each.
• You measure your work on what shipped, not on the Figma file.
• You are drawn to the bleeding edge of AI tooling and pull it into your workflow.

As a person, you

• Are first and foremost a builder.
• Are excited to be in the office most of the time.
• Love the zero‑to‑one phase of a startup.
• Value working with people who are kind, ambitious, and pragmatic.

Why this role is special

• You define Marloo’s design DNA. No playbook to follow. You write it.
• A founding team that gets design and will back you to push for great work.
• We are at the start of the most exciting era for tool builders in a generation.

Compensation and Benefits

• £80,000 to £100,000 base.
• Equity.
• Office first in central London.
• Relocation support available for the right person.

Salary Range £80-£100k depending on experience. Exceptions on a case‑by‑case basis and determined relative to open compensation standards. Happy to discuss what that would look like for you specifically during our interview process.