Lead Product Designer

About Motorway

Motorway is the UK’s fastest-growing used car marketplace - our online-only platform connects private car sellers with thousands of verified dealers nationwide, ensuring everyone gets the best deal. Founded in 2017, our award-winning, technology-led approach has redefined the experience of selling a car. Motorway is backed by some of the world’s leading technology investors, having raised £143 million in Series C funding.

The Opportunity

This is a unique opportunity to join a fast-growing scale-up at a crucial phase of growth and help change an industry for the better. As a Lead Product Designer at Motorway, you won’t just be producing great design – you'll be raising the ceiling for everyone around you. You'll shape how the team works, set the standard for craft and rigor, and bring a clear point of view on where design is heading. You'll take ownership of our most complex design challenges, working across the full product lifecycle from discovery to delivery. You'll be a trusted voice in cross‑functional conversations, a mentor to other designers, and someone who actively shapes the culture and ways of working within the design team. This is a role for someone who thinks deeply, builds boldly, and leads by doing.

What You’ll Be Doing

• Tackling the Big Stuff: You’ll own our most complex, ambiguous product challenges, transforming messy problems into elegant, crystal‑clear user experiences from discovery to deployment.
• Pioneering AI in Design: You won’t just use AI tools—you’ll write the playbook for them. You'll spearhead how our team thoughtfully integrates AI to supercharge our workflows while keeping human judgment and craft at the center.
• Designing Beyond the Screen: You'll bring a “builder mindset” to the table, collaborating seamlessly with engineering because you speak their language—whether that’s through code, complex prototypes, or building your own tools.
• Championing the User: You will be the fierce advocate for our users, leveraging deep research, continuous usability testing, and sharp data insights to validate every move we make.
• Scaling Design Culture: You'll run high‑impact workshops, level up weekly team rituals, and foster an environment where diverse perspectives thrive and designers do the best work of their careers.

Responsibilities

• Design Execution: Produce high‑quality design deliverables including user flows, wireframes, prototypes, and high‑fidelity mock‑ups for mobile and web applications, ensuring solutions meet accessibility standards and set the bar for inclusive design across the team.
• Collaboration & Commercial Awareness: Work in close partnership with product managers, engineers, and data analysts throughout the product development lifecycle. Connect user insights to product opportunities and broader business goals. You have strong commercial awareness and can articulate the business case for design decisions.
• Stakeholder Communication: Establish strong relationships across product, engineering, and the wider organisation. Communicate clearly at all levels, lead online and offline sessions to validate design decisions, and represent product design with confidence and authority.
• Mentorship & Guidance: Provide mentorship to junior and senior designers alike – sharing best practices, supporting their growth, and helping create an environment where designers can do the best work of their careers.
• Driving Design Culture: Help foster a strong design culture by contributing to weekly team rituals, running workshops, planning design‑focused events, and encouraging diverse participation. You love bringing people together around ideas.
• Continuous Improvement: Explore and encourage continuous learning across the team, playing an active role in developing our core design principles and keeping the team sharp on emerging tools, patterns, and practices.

What You’ll Bring (Requirements)

• Proven Leadership: A deep track record as a Senior or Lead Product Designer, successfully shipping impactful digital products across web and mobile ecosystems.
• A Builder’s Instinct: You don’t stop at the design file. You love getting your hands dirty and have experience shipping code, building your own products, or spinning up functional, high‑fidelity tools and prototypes.
• Versatile Experience: A strong grasp of consumer journeys, ideally with experience navigating both B2C and B2B product landscapes.
• An AI‑Forward Mindset: A highly considered approach to AI in design. You understand how to strategically use it to accelerate work, when to rely on human judgment, and how to guide a team through this evolving landscape.
• Commercial Acumen: The ability to see the bigger picture, connect design execution directly to business outcomes, and confidently shape broader product strategy.
• Modern Toolkit & Research Rigour: High proficiency in design and prototyping tools (like Figma, Claude, Kiro), combined with strong user‑centered design methodologies, accessibility standards, and research synthesisation.
• Bonus Points: Experience optimizing user journeys/conversion funnels via experimentation, or experience working within a fast‑paced, two‑sided marketplace.

Benefits

• Competitive salary
• BUPA health insurance
• Discounted gym membership through BUPA
• Hybrid working
• Pension scheme
• Motorway car leasing scheme – lease a zero‑emissions electric vehicle at a significant discount
• Enhanced parental leave – 26 weeks full pay maternity, 4 weeks full pay paternity
• Workplace nursery scheme
• OnHand volunteering membership and one paid volunteering day per year
• Cycle to work scheme
• Regular social events

Equal Opportunities

We are committed to equality of opportunity for all employees. We work to provide a supportive and inclusive environment where people can maximise their full potential. We believe our workforce should reflect a variety of backgrounds, talents, perspectives, and experiences. We welcome applications from all individuals regardless of age, disability, sex, gender reassignment, sexual orientation, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, and marriage and civil partnerships.