Senior E2E Product Designer
Share
Job Location:
Monthly Salary:
Posted on:
Vacancies:
Job Summary
High-level bits to keep in mind
Location: Our HQ is based in London (Oval)
Type: Full-time
About the role
Hi Im JC Head of Design at Zen Educate.
I started sketching out the first versions of our product on evenings and weekends before we had a team a logo or an office. Today I lead our growing design function as we take on more complex ambitious challenges across the UK and US.
Were looking for a Senior Product Designer who wants to do meaningful work at the intersection of service system and interface design and is excited by the idea of not just designing solutions but helping bring them to life end-to-end.
This is not a traditional design role.
At Zen design is evolving into a product-building discipline. That means moving fluidly from problem framing flows prototypes real working product often within the same role.
Youll still care deeply about users clarity and craft. But youll also be excited to own more of how things actually work and get shipped.
How this role is evolving
Design at Zen is becoming more end-to-end.
Our designers dont just define problems and create interfaces they increasingly shape solutions prototype them in code and help ship them into production.
With tools like Lovable Claude and others the line between design product and engineering is blurring. Were leaning into that.
In practice this means:
- Moving faster from idea prototype live product
- Owning more of the how it works not just how it looks
- Reducing handoffs and increasing accountability
- Treating design as a core product-building discipline not a stage in a process
You dont need to be an engineer but you should be motivated to take ideas beyond design and into real shipped product experiences.
What youll do
- Own problems end-to-end from discovery through to shipped product
- Design flows systems and interfaces that are simple scalable and high-quality
- Stay close to the customer building a deep understanding of educators schools and internal teams and how they actually work day-to-day
- Build and contribute to our research machine continuously learning through interviews observation data and real product usage
- Turn insight into action shaping problems validating direction and informing what gets built (not just justifying decisions after the fact)
- Create fast feedback loops testing ideas early through prototypes conversations and live experiments
- Prototype and validate ideas quickly using modern tools (including AI-assisted ones)
- Bring ideas to life beyond static design exploring interaction logic and behaviour in real environments
- Collaborate deeply with engineers and PMs while increasingly contributing directly to implementation
- Use judgement to balance speed vs quality shipping early and iterating often
- Synthesize and share learning building shared understanding across the team not letting insight sit in silos
- Mentor other designers and contribute to raising the bar across the team
- Shape how we work as design continues to evolve at Zen
What were building
Getting the right educator into the right school at the right time is a nuanced meaningful problem.
Done well it improves outcomes for children and puts more money into classrooms (weve already saved UK schools over 50 million since 2017). Done poorly it burns out teachers wastes money and disrupts education.
Our platform supports:
- Educators finding meaningful work
- Schools managing short- and long-term staffing needs
- Internal teams matching supply and demand efficiently
Were well established in the UK and rapidly growing in the US which brings a constant stream of complex high-impact design challenges across workflows systems and experiences.
What the role looks like in practice
Youll work across the full product lifecycle from early discovery through to delivery with a focus on user outcomes speed of learning and design quality.
A typical loop might look like:
- Speaking to educators or school staff to understand a problem in depth
- Synthesising insights (e.g. in tools like Dovetail) to shape a clear direction
- Rapidly exploring solutions through flows prototypes or lightweight builds often going beyond or bypassing Figma
- Testing ideas early through conversations interactive prototypes or live experiments
- Iterating quickly based on feedback and real usage
- Collaborating closely with engineers and sometimes writing or shaping production code (e.g. via tools like Claude)
- Shipping improvements and continuing to learn
Youll operate in tight loops between customer insight prototype shipped product learning helping us close the gap between idea and reality and ensuring what we build is grounded in real needs.
How we work
- Design is a partner not a service youll co-own problems and drive delivery
- Builders not just designers we value people who can take ideas to reality
- Lean over large quick flows sharp critiques fast iteration
- Bias to ship progress over perfection
- Design system is evolving youll help shape it
Growth & progression
- Choose your own adventure shape your path based on strengths and interests
- Expand your craft into prototyping technical fluency and product building
- Levels not titles growth is about scope and impact
- High ownership low bureaucracy lead your work without micromanagement
Team & culture
- Small design team big ambitions. You wont get lost in a 50-person design org and youll help define what great looks like.
- Async and face-to-face collaboration. Iterative sharing with structured rituals and casual touch points to stay aligned and connected.
- Mission-led and user-focused. Our product isnt a vanity tool or a growth hack. Its a platform with deep real-world impact.
- Still scrappy in places. Not everything is polished or perfectly resourced. If you like clean chaos and building things properly youll thrive.
Compensation
Market reality. Compensation is based on your competitiveness in your local hiring market (note thats not just where you live). We dont believe anyone has found a great solution to global compensation so we aim instead to be clear and equitable in how we do it.
Solid but not flashy compensation. We pay decently but we wont beat out companies with deeper pockets (yet!).
Think long term investment. If you are in a place where you need to prioritise immediate financial gain then this probably isnt the right time to join us.
Hiring process
We aim to hire fast and fairly clarity over games. Our ideal process is: apply one week offer the next. Heres what that looks like:
Recruiter chat
Well check the basics your availability compensation expectations and whether this feels like a mutual fit.
Meeting with me
Ill want to understand how you work what matters to you in a design role and how we can support your best work A deep dive into a past project (or two) will follow. Well look for clear storytelling design thinking collaboration and the impact of your work.
Design task session
Youll work on a real product problem shaping it exploring options and figuring out how you think.
We believe in feedback but only share it if you ask for it. If you want it just say so well be honest and constructive about how we saw things.
Sound exciting
If you read all this and thought hell yes (even if its a slightly nervous one) then please apply. If you skimmed and thought maybe apply anyway youll get a clearer sense once we chat. Were always open to great people even if the timing isnt perfect.
We currently have a clear need for one more Senior Product Designer to join the team maybe its you
Diversity & Inclusion
At Zen we strive to build a culture of equity and inclusion where everyone is respected valued and appreciated for their unique traits experiences and perspectives. We are committed to creating a safe inclusive and equitable environment where our team can thrive regardless of age ethnicity race gender identity sexual orientation socio-economic status disability religion or beliefs. We value our differences and believe that practices of Diversity Equity and Inclusion help us create a fairer more compassionate environment for all.
We welcome applicants with diverse backgrounds and different experiences and perspectives just like the staff who teach through Zen and the children at the schools we work with. We believe in hiring the best people from the widest pool and creating an inclusive culture where peoples voices are heard and all our team can look forward to coming to work.
We are committed to building a team that reflects the diversity of our community and promoting an equitable and inclusive environment for all. We seek out diverse opinions beliefs and experiences because they collectively make us stronger; weve had former teachers pilots fundraisers engineers lawyers marketers social media experts and more join our team.
Required Experience:
Senior IC
About Company
Zen Educate is a simple, streamlined platform for teachers and teaching assistants to find work in schools without expensive agency fees.
