Lead Specialist, Experience Design

Our charter is simple to state and ambitious to deliver: build what Pearson does next. We are a small newly formed team within Pearsons Enterprise Learning & Skills (ELS) division creating entirely new products for our enterprise clients rather than improving existing ones.

Our starting point is an asset few companies can claim. Pearson has nearly two centuries of history and with it one of the worlds deepest bodies of learning content assessment data and credentialing expertise. AI has transformed what that heritage makes possible. Our mission is to bring it to bear in new and distinctive ways - solving problems for our customers that could not be solved before AI.

That charter is intentionally broad. Each product may address a different challenge for the organizations we serve but everything we build shares three characteristics:

• It will always involve integrations. Our products operate inside our clients ecosystems - learning platforms HR systems identity providers and data pipelines - and must work seamlessly with all of them.
• It will almost always build on other Pearson products. Pearsons portfolio spans assessment qualifications credentials learning content and workforce skills. We combine these capabilities - and the data and insight behind them - in ways that were not possible before collaborating across the company as much as within the team.
• It will be researched and validated before it scales. We take an evidence-led approach: concepts are tested with real customers and only those that prove their value move forward. Some ideas will be retired and others will advance - both outcomes are signs of a disciplined process.

The team is built around senior individual contributors - design engineers product engineers and a zero-to-one product manager - who work as peers from initial concept to shipped product.

You think like a designer and build like an engineer. As a Senior Design Engineer on this team youll take new product concepts from first sketch to interactive prototype to production-quality interface sometimes in the same week. Theres no handoff here: you design in Figma in code and in whatever AI tool gets you to the answer fastest then put the result in front of real users at real enterprise clients.

This is a senior individual contributor role. There are no direct reports; your influence comes from craft evidence and trust.

• Prototype new product concepts in code (React/TypeScript or similar) at whatever fidelity the question demands from disposable spikes to polished demo-ready experiences used in client validation.

• Design and build the user-facing layer of new products end to end: interaction design information architecture visual design motion and the front-end code behind all of it.

• Make composed products feel like one product. Our concepts stitch together other Pearson products and third-party enterprise systems; you make those seams invisible to learners and administrators.

• Establish lightweight design foundations for each new bet patterns components tokens with enough system to move fast and not so much that it calcifies around ideas we might kill.

• Plan and run validation alongside the product manager: usability sessions concept tests and prototypes built specifically as research instruments.

• Ship accessible by default. For enterprise learning products WCAG conformance is a floor not a feature.

• Flex to what the bet needs some weeks thats deep in the codebase alongside the product engineer; others its entirely in research facilitation or design.

• Relevant of experience spanning product design and front-end engineering in any mix with a portfolio of shipped products and prototypes you can walk us through.

• Strong front-end craft: modern TypeScript/JavaScript React or a comparable framework and CSS youre genuinely proud of.

• Real design skill typography layout color interaction and motion plus the judgment to know when polish matters and when speed does.

• Fluency across the modern toolchain: Figma for design and AI-assisted workflows (e.g. Claude Cursor Copilot) as a natural part of how you explore and build.

• Experience designing for complex systems: multi-role products data-heavy interfaces or integration-rich enterprise environments.

• Working knowledge of accessibility standards (WCAG) and how to apply them in practice.

• The autonomy to operate in ambiguous zero-to-one contexts and the communication skills to bring others along with you.

• Involvement with the web standards community (W3C WHATWG) through working groups community groups or deep working knowledge of the standards themselves.

• Familiarity with learning technology standards and ecosystems: LTI SCORM xAPI QTI Caliper and the LMS/LXP platforms our clients run.

• Committee or working-group experience you know how to move ideas through structured multi-stakeholder processes.

• Research experience whether user research design research or academic.

• Flexible. Bets change priorities shift and fidelity ranges from napkin sketch to production. You move fluidly between them.

• Not precious. Some of what we build will be thrown away thats the process working not failing. You hold your work loosely and your standards tightly.

• Comfortable in parallel. Youll usually carry more than one workstream at a time and you can context-switch without dropping threads.

• A systems thinker. You can understand complex systems technical organizational or both and figure out how to work effectively within them.

• A genuine problem-solver. You start from the problem not from your job title or your favorite solution.

• Good with people. You build trust quickly across teams disciplines and levels inside Pearson and with clients.

• Principled and pragmatic. You follow the rules that matter ethics privacy security and accessibility are non-negotiable and you know how to flex in and out of heavyweight structures when a small fast-moving team calls for it.

• A clear communicator. You make your thinking legible in writing diagrams demos and rooms full of executives or engineers.

• Ego-free about execution. Everyone on this team is willing to write ALL the code or NONE of the code depending on what the bet needs.

• Comfortable in discomfort. Ambiguity unfamiliar domains and half-formed ideas are the raw material of this job.

• An independent thinker. You form your own view argue for it well and update it quickly when the evidence says you should.

Location & Work Set Up

This is a full-time hybrid role based in the UK with regular collaboration from our London office.

Your Rewards & Benefits

We know youll do great work so we give a lot back with some of the best benefits in the business. We know one size doesnt fit all so our workplace programs meet the different needs of our diverse teams and their families too.

Please see our attractive UK benefits here:Home - Pearson Benefits

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