Product Design Manager - Design System

Description

The company is a financial platform across Africa that gives 10 million businesses and individuals payments, banking, credit and business management tools. It has operated since 2019 and is profitable. It is Nigeria's largest merchant acquirer and handles most of the country's Point of Sale (POS) transactions through its subsidiaries, processing $22 billion a month.

Your customers are shop owners, traders and entrepreneurs, many new to digital products, often using low-end devices on unreliable networks. A confusing screen can cost them a sale, so the team's work must work for every user regardless of ability or device.

This is a Design Manager role leading a small team of product designers. You are accountable for what they ship, including its quality, how it fits together as one product, and the results it drives for customers and the business. The team designs either the POS, mobile and web products customers use, or the internal tools staff use to serve them.

The role is hands-on. You will build the systems the team works within and take on the hardest problems yourself.

Hiring process: a recruiter conversation covering your background, next step and practical details. Then a case study review in which you walk a design leader through one or two case studies in depth, one from your own work and one from a team you led. Next, a live leadership challenge working through a product and team problem with two design leaders. The process ends with a final interview with the hiring manager.

Responsibilities

• Set design direction for your area and turn it into plans with milestones and measurable outcomes. Present it to senior leaders in terms of customers and business impact.
• Work with product partners so each designer starts from a clear, well-framed brief. Raise concerns early when a brief is not ready.
• Keep each customer journey coherent across teams and resolve conflicting designs before launch.
• Lead critiques and design reviews against a definition of done that includes accessibility. Stay close enough to the work to keep anything below the bar from reaching customers.
• Decide which designs must be tested with customers before build and which can ship and be measured afterwards. Plan that validation into delivery, with success metrics set in advance.
• Make sure journeys use the design system, handling market and product differences within it rather than through one-off rebuilds. Plan and staff system work like any other project.
• Build strong partnerships with product and engineering so design influences what gets built and stays aligned with engineering through delivery.
• Hire well, set clear expectations, give direct feedback, and create a growth path for each designer.
• Bring AI tools into the team's design process, use them responsibly in your own work, and build the same skill across the team.

Requirements

• 10+ years of product design experience, with a portfolio of shipped mobile and web work that shows the problem, your decisions and the results.
• 3+ years managing product designers, including hiring, coaching and career development.
• Experience setting design direction for a product area and leading a team to deliver it.
• Experience running a design quality practice, such as critiques, design reviews and a definition of done, that improved the quality of shipped work.
• Experience building shared patterns or templates adopted across teams, products or markets.
• Experience shipping accessible, inclusive products for people with disabilities, people new to digital products, and people on limited devices and connectivity.
• Experience using AI tools in design work and building that skill across a team.
• Experience designing for POS terminals is a strong plus. Experience in financial services, multiple markets or operational tools is also welcome.

Conditions

Remote-friendly work culture.

Fully remote work culture.

Benefits

• Leadership role shaping the future of fintech, with work that reaches millions of users.
• Career growth opportunities.
• Culture of experimentation that encourages new ideas and rapid iteration.
• Competitive compensation and benefits.
• Access to learning resources and support for professional development.