Design Principal

Job Description: Design Principal

Location: Manchester

Working Options: Hybrid & flexible

Role Type: Permanent, Full Time - 37.5 hours

Salary: Up to £80K depending on experience

We make health happen! You’ll belong to a passionate and talented multi-disciplinary experienced design team, made up of user researchers, product designers, content designers, and design operations, who are focused on creating the best digital experiences for Bupa’s customers in the UK.

Role Responsibilities

As Design Principal, you will be responsible for leading the direction and improving the quality of customer-centric experiences from concept to launch across multiple product squads. Growing healthy partnerships with a team of product owners, senior stakeholders, and scrum masters, you’ll be involved in the strategy to drive the product’s direction, creating seamless, connected products and services.

Working with our Head of Design, you’ll establish and enhance product design as a vital strategic partner to help our organization grow. You will contribute to the Design Leadership cohort to optimize and improve the performance of our Experience Design team. You’ll also line manage a group of Product Designers and provide mentorship and support to facilitate development, encourage growth, and foster a culture of care and candor.

How You’ll Help Us Make Health Happen

• Define and articulate the product strategy and vision for Bupa.co.uk across multiple squads.
• Provide strategic direction and guidance on approach and timescales blending hands-on support and leadership to add value where needed.
• Build relationships and collaborate with teams, including marketing, product, proposition, technology, and delivery, building advocacy and evangelizing the principles, standards, and processes of product design and development.
• Confidently mediate across the demands of a business, the needs of the customer, and the feasibility of the tech stack to design the right thing and design the thing right.
• Be responsible for the timely delivery of projects aligning with business goals and UX metrics.
• Set, track, and measure UX metrics for your squads and regularly communicate the impact and value of design.
• Support post-campaign reviews to optimize and improve existing and future work.
• Manage and refine roadmaps and prioritize backlogs across squads with your colleagues, always prioritizing the most valuable features for customers and the business.

Design Leadership and People Management

• Mentor, coach, and inspire other members of the experience design team as a people manager.
• Help maintain and improve the inherent pillars of our team’s culture: psychological safety, celebrating success, and learning from each other. Team size up to 10.
• Drive operational enhancements within the design function, in collaboration with other members of the design leadership team, to improve ways of working and ensure consistency across the wider design function.
• Collaborate closely with product, technology, and design leadership to shape and execute Bupa’s overarching strategy and vision across all relevant domains.
• Advocate for the adoption of the organisation’s Design System, ‘Anatomy,’ and contribute to the community.

Key Skills / Qualifications Needed

• A strong background in end-to-end product design with a track-record of tackling complex problems and delivering simple solutions using human-centered design approaches.
• Highly developed and confident stakeholder management skills, experienced in dealing with broad stakeholder groups.
• A strategic, thought leader across the design process, able to influence and drive change ensuring alignment with business objectives and industry best practices.
• Proven experience in managing, leading, and nurturing large product/UX design teams.
• Strong coaching, mentoring, and ‘championing’ your teams are key elements of your leadership style.
• Strong communication skills; a visionary storyteller who inspires, influences, and can tell a compelling story.
• Highly collaborative in approach, values others’ input and expertise, and seeks feedback.
• A growth mindset.

Benefits

Our benefits are designed to make health happen for our people. Viva is our global wellbeing programme and includes all aspects of our health – from mental and physical, to financial, social and environmental wellbeing. We support flexible working and have a range of family-friendly benefits. Joining Bupa in this role you will receive the following benefits and more:

• 25 days holiday, increasing through length of service, with the option to buy or sell
• Bupa health insurance as a benefit in kind
• Pension
• Annual performance-based bonus
• Onsite gyms or local discounts where no onsite gym available
• Access to our confidential employee assistance programme
• Various other benefits and online discounts

Why Bupa?

We’re a health insurer and provider. With no shareholders, our customers are our focus. Our people are all driven by the same purpose – helping people live longer, healthier, happier lives and making a better world. We make health happen by being brave, caring, and responsible in everything we do.

We encourage all of our people to “Be you at Bupa”, we champion diversity, and we understand the importance of our people representing the communities and customers we serve. That’s why we especially encourage applications from people with diverse backgrounds and experiences.