Design Lead/Team Lead in Belfast

At Whitespace, we’re an AI company for Defence, Government and Regulated Industries. We build the technology, operating model and mission-ready applications needed to move AI from proof-of-concept into real operational use. Collective connects governed data, domain context, reasoning and action with full audibility, security and control. Whitespace combines this platform with a structured Solutions Engineering approach that ensures AI is delivered safely, quickly and in line with government and defence assurance requirements. Our Applied Intelligence applications, including Operational Learning and Decision Intelligence for optimisation, are deployed in live environments and demonstrate how AI can be trusted, adopted and scaled under real-world constraints.

We’re looking for a Product Design Team Lead to drive best-in-class user experience and interaction design. You will maintain a strong, hands-on presence while providing crucial leadership and management to the team. The role's primary focus will be on our leading-edge Collective AI Operating System, while maintaining design oversight across our portfolio of platform applications. This is a high-impact role reporting directly into our Head of Product and Design, focused on shaping the design for Collective's AI application builder, orchestration, and natural language interfaces and the design framework for our solutions engineering applications. You will set the design strategy, deliver exceptional user experience, and define how our AI-first products help solve real-world problems for critical industries.

Hands-on and customer-facing, you will also own our Springboard design system, shape our design direction, and define our team’s work - choosing the best of next-gen AI-tooling to supercharge our design processes. Highly collaborative, you’ll join a close-knit, cross-functional team of product managers, designers, researchers and engineers who work together to build AI-powered applications for high impact industries.

Act as a player-coach, providing leadership, direction, and management to a growing team of product designers in a well funded and rapidly growing Series A startup. Drive a healthy and high-quality design culture through hands-on design mentorship and peer review. Build processes and supporting materials that ensure our design system and guidelines are adopted across all teams, delivering our vision of best-in-class user experience for intent driven, AI rendered user interfaces. Actively identify and evaluate AI tooling and approaches that improve velocity, quality, and collaboration with product/engineering.

Design Ownership & Execution

• Lead the user experience and interface design across our flagship Collective Operating System, providing design oversight for the wider portfolio of platform applications.
• Own the end-to-end design process—from early discovery and flows to final UI, prototypes, handoff and iteration.
• Create clear, user-centred design artefacts including wireframes, flows, journey maps, and interactive prototypes for conversational design and intent-driven UI.
• Run design workshops and partner with discovery researchers to facilitate user research and understand the why.
• Support early product framing by translating research, technical insight, and feedback into clear design direction.
• Present design decisions clearly to internal stakeholders—both technical and non-technical.
• Be willing to travel to customer sites on occasion, if required.

8+ years of hands-on product design experience, ideally including enterprise, B2B environments and complex data-heavy environments. Proven experience in line management, mentorship, or leadership of a product design team. Evidence of designing and shipping real, complex digital products used in production. Comfortable moving across multiple fidelity levels—from conceptual design and structure to detailed UI. Deep skills in modern design tools and prototyping practices, but with an eagerness and adaptability to identify and use next-gen tooling – No strong allegiance to ways of working or specific tooling, you are motivated by shipping high quality user experiences. Strong design communication and stakeholder engagement skills. Due to UK Government and Defence customers, it is preferable that applications are willing and eligible to obtain UK Security Clearance (SC), or hold active SC.

Work on impactful, cutting-edge products powered by artificial intelligence. Be part of an agile, close-knit team that values creativity, quality, and continuous learning. Influence to shape and lead design across our flagship Collective Operating System. EMI Share Options in a fast growing series A startup. A flexible working environment, with typically 2 days of hybrid working in our Belfast office, and one of the best work-life balances you’ll find: A 4-day week during the holidays - July, August and December. Early finish every working Friday at 3pm. 25 days of annual leave, plus all NI bank holidays.

If you're a designer who loves solving complex problems through thoughtful, validated, hands-on design — and you're ready to lead by doing — drop us a line.