Product Designer - FT Adviser

Here at the Financial Times, gold-standard journalism is just the beginning. 500-people strong, our Product and Tech team keeps us ahead of the ever-changing digital landscape by delivering cutting-edge products to over one million digital subscribers every day. Our plans for growth rely on a diverse, dedicated and dynamic group of product, tech, delivery and data specialists - everyone’s welcome in this friendly, forward-thinking team. And with entrepreneurial spirit, intelligence and opportunity at every turn, there’s no limits to where your FT career will take you.

Position Summary

We are looking for a Product Designer to join the Product Design team in our Sofia Office.

You’ll be working on FTAdviser, a website that provides news, opinion and CPD for Financial Advisers.

Design in FTAdviser

As the only designer on the product, you will take responsibility for all aspects of product design: from discovery to delivery, from UX and IA to the UI, for all features and functionality.

With support from the user research team, you will plan and run user research and A/B tests, to inform and validate your designs.

You will evolve the UI for FTAdviser and contribute to the design system. 

You will work in a fully empowered squad of engineers, researchers and a product manager, and collaborate with stakeholders such as editorial and marketing.

You will join a fantastic design and research team of more than 35 people, 8 who are based in Sofia.

About FTAdviser

In 2023, we are focused on increasing the engagement of our existing audience. You can expect to work on:

• Improving content recommendations and personalisation for our users

• Understanding why some users are less engaged, and what we can do to increase their engagement

• Designing an improved training / professional development experience 

In 2024, we will explore how to extend FTAdviser to a wider audience.

Week to week, you’ll be:

• Planning and prioritising. You’ll have an equal stake in your squad’s direction. You’ll learn, plan and prioritise your areas of focus and approach together.

• Leading and developing. You’ll lead the solution of your product area, develop design  processes and contribute to the team’s culture.

• Researching and learning about users. Defining and running user research and testing. Digging into data to understand and measure behaviours. 

• Analysing products. Conducting competitor and comparator analysis, reviewing existing journeys and features. 

• Empathy and experience mapping. Understanding user mindsets, motivations and expectations. Mapping experiences, journeys and flows, to help us unearth and prioritise pain points and opportunities.

• Ideating. Working with your squad to generate and prioritise ideas. Planning and facilitating co-creation workshops

• Concepting and exploring. Developing loose ideas into concepts. Working with your squad to evolve and prioritise those concepts.

• Testing and learning fast. Using a variety of testing approaches and techniques; card sorting, low and high fidelity prototypes, fake-door tests, multivariate testing, and shipping into the live environment to learn. 

• Measuring and prioritising. Measuring experiments with your squad. Abandoning unsuccessful concepts, and evolving successful ones.

• Supported: by your squad, your line manager, the Director of Product design, and the whole Product Design team. We work hard to foster a safe environment where we share and discuss our work proactively, to inspire, support and guide each other.

• Evolving! We strive to continually improve and evolve.

What we’re looking for from you

• Strong end-to-end product design competencies. You’ll have led the delivery of dozens of shipped features and iterations, perhaps across several products. You’ll probably have been a practising product designer for 3+ years.

• Experience working in cross-functional product teams.

• A portfolio which helps us understand your product design approach and experience. Your portfolio should tell us about the approach you took and what you learned, rather than only showcasing final designs. 

• A flexible, motivated, experimental and collaborative mindset. You should be comfortable with ambiguity and testing and learning.

In Return, We Can Offer You

• Annual bonus scheme

• 25 days paid leave

• 24/7 Employee Assistance Program

• Life Insurance 

• Enhanced Maternity and Paternity Leave policy

• Food Allowance

• Multisport Card

• Both in house and external training programs

• Your own training dedicated budget (for conferences, courses etc.)

Career progression and growth

The Product Design Team has a transparent, measurable progression framework, which outlines all of the skills FT Product Designers need, and details how to progress in each skill category. We use this as a basis for your biannual reviews, where you’ll self assess against the progression framework, track progression, and agree areas of focus with your line manager. 

We invest in our people to allow them to grow both personally and professionally whilst working at The FT. We offer a variety of ways in which you can progress your career with us, some of which are highlighted below: 

• Career coaching - Career coaching is time spent focused on you and how you can achieve your career aspirations. 

• Mentoring programme - The mentoring programme aims to connect people across the business to support professional and personal growth through knowledge sharing and guidance.

• Learning and development - The FT offers a host of learning and development opportunities that will not only help you build the skills you need to grow in your profession or field, but will also help you improve your own personal development, with courses such as self-coaching, productivity, presentation confidence, research techniques and much more.

Anything else?

Don’t forget to send over your CV!

The Financial Times Ltd. committed to equality of opportunity. We are determined to create a diverse group at all levels of our Company and we welcome all members of the community we serve to apply for openings with us.