Product Design Director (SMB Domain)

Imagine Apple releasing a new iPhone only available in their Apple stores. No online purchase. Sounds pretty wrong, right?

That’s a bit where Pleo were until recently. Over the years we’ve grown big centered around a world class sales led distribution model. Now we’re building that online purchase experience. We need the product to be end to end self-serve. We need the product to sell itself.

As a talented, Europe-based, Product Design Director, this is where you come in. You’ll join the leadership team of our SMB domain playing a huge part in shaping this product led growth transformation, our overall distribution model and ultimately the customer experience.

About Pleo

Pleo is the leading spend management platform for smaller and medium sized business in Europe. Our mission is to make everyone feel valued at work and help companies go beyond the books.

Our product solves for the pains of company spending. We empower all who need to spend with a web and mobile app, virtual and physical cards and the ability to easily pay invoices and reimburse themselves. Finance get’s a superior real time overview, control mechanisms and an integration to their accounting system for easy and pain free bookkeeping. After all, paying and managing company spend shouldn’t be hard.”

Design at Pleo

We’re known for the ease of use of our tool. Creating a great and easy to use experiences for our customers is one of our competitive advantages and we plan to keep it so. Our design team aims to empower our end-users by creating simple and beautiful interfaces that accomplish complex business tasks. Keeping everyone in the company happy, including the finance team.

We want few yet very effective features. It'd be easy to create bloated software, but deep down, we believe the best interface is no interface – just because we can design for screens doesn't mean we always should.

Product Design Director at Pleo

As Product Design Director for the SMB domain you will report directly to the VP of Design and you will work as part of the domain leadership alongside the Domain Lead, the Product Director, the Engineering Lead as well as Commercial Leads. You will also be part of our cross-domain design leadership group.

You be responsible for:

• Championing the design craft and raising the design maturing in all colleagues around you be they senior, junior, to the left or to the right of you.
• Creating a conducive environment that enables people to do their best work and have fun while staying healthy.
• Applying and embedding design-led methodologies to our product delivery process, including establishing usability– and experience metrics, to see great design work having a direct and measurable impact on our customers.
• Leading the designers in SMB and developing a high-performing design team through leadership, coaching, mentoring, managing and hiring.
• Act as part of the overall Pleo leadership by embodying our vision and values as well as facilitating cross-functional collaborations for example with brand, marketing or sales colleagues.
• Shape and architect cross-domain experiences with the rest of the design leadership team.

The ideal candidate

• Love growing and leading teams that build quality products to solve our customers problems. Proven expertise in delivering delightful user experiences and establishing iterative design processes and usability metrics aligned with commercial targets.
• Passionate about helping customers onboard, engage, grow and advocate for a product that truly solves a pain. Experience in building for product growth, a product-led growth motion and optimisation through better design and content is much preferred.
• 5+ years managing designers and the ability to build, mentor and motivate high-performing design teams.
• Experience being part of cross-functional leadership team with strong commercial drivers.
• Experience being part of a cross-departmental design leadership, distilling company goals, creating processes and defining tools to help all teams drive towards coherent and remarkable experiences that makes sense for the end-user.
• And the successful candidate will be able to demonstrate good collaboration, facilitation and communication skills. Great time management and multi-tasking skills. And ability to resolve inter-personal conflicts and turn them into strong, common ways forward.

About Pleo

Pleo is the leading spend management platform for smaller and medium sized business in Europe. Our mission is to make everyone feel valued at work and help companies go beyond the books.

Our product solves for the pains of company spending. We empower all who need to spend with a web and mobile app, virtual and physical cards and the ability to easily pay invoices and reimburse themselves. Finance get’s a superior real time overview, control mechanisms and an integration to their accounting system for easy and pain free bookkeeping. After all, paying and managing company spend shouldn’t be hard.”

Design at Pleo

We’re known for the ease of use of our tool. Creating a great and easy to use experiences for our customers is one of our competitive advantages and we plan to keep it so. Our design team aims to empower our end-users by creating simple and beautiful interfaces that accomplish complex business tasks. Keeping everyone in the company happy, including the finance team.

We want few yet very effective features. It'd be easy to create bloated software, but deep down, we believe the best interface is no interface – just because we can design for screens doesn't mean we always should.

Product Design Director at Pleo

As Product Design Director for the SMB domain you will report directly to the VP of Design and you will work as part of the domain leadership alongside the Domain Lead, the Product Director, the Engineering Lead as well as Commercial Leads. You will also be part of our cross-domain design leadership group.

You be responsible for:

• Championing the design craft and raising the design maturing in all colleagues around you be they senior, junior, to the left or to the right of you.
• Creating a conducive environment that enables people to do their best work and have fun while staying healthy.
• Applying and embedding design-led methodologies to our product delivery process, including establishing usability– and experience metrics, to see great design work having a direct and measurable impact on our customers.
• Leading the designers in SMB and developing a high-performing design team through leadership, coaching, mentoring, managing and hiring.
• Act as part of the overall Pleo leadership by embodying our vision and values as well as facilitating cross-functional collaborations for example with brand, marketing or sales colleagues.
• Shape and architect cross-domain experiences with the rest of the design leadership team.

Show me the Benefits!

• Your own Pleo card (no more out-of-pocket spending!)
• Lunch is on us - with catering in our Lisbon, Copenhagen and London offices or a monthly lunch allowance paid directly together with  your salary in other markets 🍜
• Private health insurance to ensure you’re fit in body and mind to do your best work
• In [location], we offer days of holiday + your public holidays
• For our [name of team] we offer [statement about flexibility/remote working options]
• Option to purchase 5 additional days of holiday through a salary sacrifice
• Wellbeing days - fully paid days off designed for a slower pace, allowing you to take time to recharge and prioritise self-care
• We’re trialling MyndUp to give our employees access to free mental health and wellbeing support with great success so far  ❤️‍🩹
• Access to LinkedIn Learning - acquire new skills, stay abreast of industry trends and fuel your personal and professional development continuously 
• Paid parental leave - we want to make sure that we're supportive of families and help you feel that you don't have to compromise your family due to work 👶
• All of us have a stake in Pleo’s success - ask us about our equity grant schem