About Klarna
Klarna was founded in Stockholm, Sweden in 2005. Since then we've changed the banking industry forever. And now we're creating the world's smoothest shopping experience. We serve over 90 million consumers worldwide, and partner with 250,000 merchants – with a new merchant joining us every 8 minutes. Including some of the world's leading brands, such as H&M, ASOS, IKEA, Adidas, Samsung and Lufthansa. Our offices are spread over 17 different markets, hosted by 5000+ employees from 100+ nationalities.
Summary
Klarna is the place where change is happening. Fast. We are in a scaleup phase with a foundation in place while still being formable. Our focus is moving from payments to shopping. From invoices to inspiration. Having 90 million shoppers and 200K+ retailers is great, but we are nowhere near done. The challenge ahead is to lift the product and all aspects of design to even higher levels. We’re not just trying to raise the bar. We want to be the bar. For that, we need a leader for leaders who knows what it takes to work as a designer. Someone to drive excellence and to challenge the status quo.
The purpose of the Design Competence at Klarna
The Design Competence ensures Klarna’s products serve our customers’ needs, fulfilling these needs in easy-to-use, enjoyable, and innovative ways. Our competence is dedicated to enhancing and redefining the world’s smooothest shopping experience – constantly raising the bar on delightful and intuitive product experiences. We do this through rigorous user research, championing the craft and execution of our products, developing design systems and tooling, and curating Klarna’s voice.
As Head of Product Foundation, you will lead the organization responsible for the vision and coherency of our entire product ecosystem. This is a founding role that will require setting the vision and roadmap for how Klarna ensures a high level of product quality across all products at the company. This will include leading the Design Systems team (which has been established and will be part of this organization) and more broadly designing the teams you need, hiring, and executing on a long-term vision.
High level responsibilities
- Hire, mentor, and lead product design leaders at Klarna with a focus on the leadership’s ability to scale and deliver excellence in a sustainable way.
- Partner with leadership to create and contribute to strategic initiatives that shape the future direction of Klarna products.
- Design your organization with a focus on creating capacity and a culture all designers want to work within.
- Responsible for overall organization performance and health, resource allocation, project prioritization, and building a culture of design excellence.
- Drive excellence for the Design Competence through the development of best practices and standards, being a source of inspiration through showing by doing.
- Represent Klarna thought leadership on an industry-level.
Qualifications
- Experience in a head of design systems or similar role in a scaled organization.
- You know the difference between good and great product experiences and have demonstrated the ability to get large teams to great.
- Experience building, leading and developing strategic design organizations including a proven track record in mentoring and developing senior design leaders.
- Proven collaboration and relationship building with executive teams.
- Experience developing strategic initiatives, opportunity analysis, and negotiating business trade-offs.
- Experience working autonomously to influence decisions across organizational boundaries.
- Experience in fast-paced and growing start-up environments, such as product companies, growing startups.
- Proven ability to inspire design leaders and their teams.
- Excellent written, verbal, and storytelling skills in English.
How to apply:
Please send over a CV in English. We recommend that you submit your application as soon as possible as selection and interviews are held continually.
Klarna is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees and candidates. Please refrain from including your picture and age with your application.