Head of Product Design

Head of Product Design

At Flipdish, we’re turning the tables in favour of independent restaurant and takeaway owners by providing them with the tools they need to make their lives easier. We provide our customers with a suite of powerful, but straightforward tech along with (real human) support, so they can thrive on their own terms.

Everything we do is designed to make running a restaurant satisfyingly simple, in a world that’s anything but.

About this role… 

We are looking for a seasoned Head of Design to spearhead our team of five designers in crafting world-class experiences for our clients (restaurants) and consumers (food enthusiasts) and take us forward in our mission to level the playing field for independent restaurants. Our UX team plays an integral part in gathering insights about the attitudes, emotions, and behaviours of people who use our products to inspire and inform design. We collaborate closely with each other, with engineering and product management to create industry-leading products that deliver value for the people who use them, and for the Flipdish business.

The ideal candidate will have a proven track record of leading design teams, developing design strategies and principles, and ensuring adherence to these principles throughout the design process. You'll thrive on diving into the details when needed and have incredible attention to detail, but are also comfortable taking a leadership role, advocating for design across the organisation and coaching others on best practices. 

The quality of our products and services is one of our top priorities for this year and it will be your role (along with the design team) to define quality from a design perspective and be an advocate for excellence through the use of user-centered principles, methods, and tools—paying close attention to ensuring a unified experience across our Flipdish products and services.

In this job, you’ll be… 

Leading the Design Team:

• Provide leadership, guidance, and mentorship to a team of five UX designers.
• Cultivate a collaborative and innovative environment that fosters creativity and design excellence.
• Set clear goals and objectives for the design team aligned with the company's vision, conducting regular performance reviews and providing constructive feedback.

Defining and Implementing Design Vision, Goals & Principles:

• Work closely with cross-functional teams to define and communicate the overall design vision, principles, goals, and roadmap, ensuring alignment with organisational priorities.
• Work with the team to execute against these goals ensuring adherence to our design principles at all times
• Establish and maintain design processes and workflows to support efficient collaboration and decision-making within the team and across the organisation.

Building a Strong Design Culture:

• Drive a strong design culture across the organisation, defining the Design Operating Model and ensuring alignment with Product & Engineering operating models.
• Champion accessibility and customer-centricity in the experiences we build.
• Collaborate closely with product managers, engineers, and other teams across the business to get under the skin of our users' problems, define their needs, and validate design solutions.
• Bring a creative approach to discovering and solving users' problems. You’ll need to be comfortable striking the balance between the need for discovery, and pragmatic decision making based on your experience. 

Contribution to Strategic and Tactical Decisions:

• Collaborate on strategic and tactical decisions within the wider product and design leadership team. 
• Operate comfortably with individuals at every level of seniority, from C-suite executives to junior engineers.

We’re looking for… 

• Proven experience as a design leader, comfortable operating at all levels of seniority.
• Hands-on approach with a passion for diving into the details and working alongside teams to upskill and coach.
• Deep understanding of user-centered design principles, design thinking methodologies, and usability best practices, with a focus on delivering intuitive and delightful user experience with experience designing successful products that solve real problems.
• Experience with developing and implementing a design system.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills for effective collaboration with cross-functional teams across the business 
• Strong digital product design skills with a strong portfolio of work.
• Advocate for service design and service thinking.
• Collaborative, pragmatic, and outcome-focused approach to work.
• Willingness to travel, specifically to Dublin (if based out of Manchester) or Manchester (if based out of Dublin) for relationship building with the team 
• Ability to travel to and from your local hub office (either Manchester or Dublin c 2. days a week) 

This role isn’t for you if:

• You prefer leading from afar; we need individuals who are hands-on and comfortable getting deeply involved in the detail. It is likely in the first few months that you will be working directly with one of our squads as the sole designer.
• You are hesitant to challenge ideas; we need someone who is passionate, and will advocate for their designs and solving users' problems. You need to be comfortable standing your ground!
• Influencing others presents a challenge for you.

What you get

We’re a growing startup and we understand that amazing incentives will attract amazing talent. As well as the perks, we provide unparalleled opportunities for career growth. If you’re smart, ambitious, and hard-working, we’ll do whatever it takes to make you a Flipdisher!

Some of our incentives include:

🏡 Hub model - we encourage a healthy blend of hub & home working

🌴25 days holidays per year and plenty of company get togethers!

❤️‍🩹 Healthcare coverage for UK, Ireland, and US based employees

🎭 Team meet-ups and social events

🔗 You can read more about our benefits here

🦄 About Flipdish

We’re Flipdish, an Irish unicorn (valued at over $1bn), serving independent restaurants in a world transformed by tech. No matter how fast Flipdish has grown, we’ve evolved around our customers and their needs. We’re not just an end-to-end ecosystem of technology, but a team committed to supporting people in the food industry.  

We go to great lengths to understand our customers (check out our C-suite on work experience). We’re food industry natives. We’ve worked in busy kitchens and run busy restaurant franchises. We don’t just help our customers deal with real life problems, we give them a way of competing with the big chains, growing on their own terms, and falling back in love with what they do.

🫀Our culture

At this point, you might expect the usual spiel about how great a place Flipdish is to work at and how great our work culture is (and it is!). But, this all depends on our employees. And that’s because we trust our employees to define what sort of an employer Flipdish is. 

Transparency is hugely important to us. We listen to one another. We collaborate. And we give everyone a way to grow their careers through a supportive environment. 

We’re a company that values diversity, inclusion, and wellbeing as standard. We believe in balance, not burnout. And all permanent employees qualify for our share scheme because we share our success. 

We certainly encourage flexibility where possible and combine this with beautiful offices in bustling cities like London, Dublin & Karachi. We’re focused on getting the most out of our time together, output and team energy is at the heart of our hub based philosophy - not an attendance ticking exercise!

So, if you want to join a genuinely friendly team, take a look at our current openings and get in touch. And if you don’t see an opening just yet, do get in touch and register your interest with us anyway. We’ll be in touch as soon as something suitable opens up.

🙈Don’t be shy. Apply. 

We know that imposter syndrome can be a thing. Don’t let it be. We want enthusiastic people from all backgrounds. If you feel like you’re up for working with us, get in touch. 

We also understand some candidates might need assistance. That’s not a problem in the slightest. Just reach out to us, we’d love to hear from you.