Lead Product Designer, Cleo
Design System
£82.5-106.9k
+ Equity
More information about location
1-2 days a week in office
AI personal finance assistant
Be an early applicant
AI personal finance assistant
201-500 employees
Be an early applicant
£82.5-106.9k
+ Equity
More information about location
1-2 days a week in office
201-500 employees
Company mission
To help millions of people improve their financial health, and relate to them in a way their banks never could.
Role
Who you are
- Proven experience with Design Systems: Your portfolio highlights multiple design systems you’ve created or largely contributed to, showcasing a strong understanding of scalable design. Ideally, you have approx 6+ years in Product Design with 2+ years at least specialising in design systems
- Cross-Platform expertise: You have experience designing for both mobile app and desktop environments, ensuring seamless usability across devices
- Deep design knowledge: Skilled in creating modular, accessible, and user-centred designs that scale to millions of users
- Collaborative and adaptable: Comfortable working within diverse, fast-paced teams, you have a track record of effective collaboration in a rapid-growth environment
- Impact-driven: You’re motivated by seeing tangible impact, excited by the idea that work done on a Monday could be live by Friday, driving results
- Technically proficient: Experienced in partnering closely with engineers, you understand the technical considerations of design system implementation
- Experimentation and analysis mindset: You value experimentation, data, and analysis, using these insights to inform and iterate on design decisions
What the job involves
- This is a unique opportunity to shape Cleo’s next chapter, leading initiatives that enhance both the pace and quality of our work
- Cleo is a conversation-first financial assistant, empowering people to build a stronger relationship with their money
- We are launching Cleonardo, our first-ever tokenized design system, alongside a refreshed brand identity and new three-tab Information Architecture (IA)
- This evolution reflects the maturity and quality we believe our users deserve in their financial journey
- As Cleo’s Design Systems Lead, you’ll be part of a newly-formed, design-led, cross-functional squad dedicated to evolving, implementing, and scaling Cleo’s design system, Cleonardo
- With a focus on Quality as a company-wide OKR, your work will have a direct and high-impact role in shaping the user experience across the Cleo platform
- Define and evolve visual language: Work with Principal designers to lead the development of Cleonardo’s visual language —including typography, colour, iconography, and componentry—ensuring consistency with Cleo’s rebrand and scalability across products
- Tokenize and standardise brand elements: Integrate new brand elements into Cleonardo to create a cohesive and accessible design system that reflects our refreshed look and feel across all Cleo products
- Holistic problem-solving: Apply strategic thinking and a big-picture perspective to evolve the design system, identifying and addressing challenges that span across teams and user experiences. Balance innovation with practicality to implement solutions that enhance the product’s usability and cohesiveness
- Conduct UI audits and ensure quality: Regularly audit Cleo’s UI and design system to identify and resolve inconsistencies, continuously improving Cleonardo’s alignment with brand standards and design quality
- Maintain and scale Design System Libraries: Manage Cleonardo’s Figma libraries for desktop and mobile, ensuring they are accessible, scalable, and integrated into team workflows
- Drive Cross-functional adoption: Partner with product and engineering teams to embed Cleonardo across Cleo, establishing a contribution model that enables efficient collaboration and system coherence
- Champion Accessibility and Inclusivity: Embed accessibility and inclusion standards within Cleonardo, ensuring that all elements meet and exceed accessibility requirements
- Communicate and advocate for Cleonardo: Act as an ambassador for the design system, providing regular updates to stakeholders and educating teams on new patterns and components
- Inspire innovation and elevate design standards: Bring fresh, forward-thinking ideas to the table, exploring new approaches to design systems that can elevate Cleo’s user experience and set new standards for quality and accessibility
- Cross-Functional collaboration: Work closely with product, engineering, brand, and content teams to align Cleonardo with broader company goals, ensuring that the design system meets diverse needs and drives consistency across departments. Build relationships with key stakeholders, hold retrospectives, and gather input to promote team alignment, growth, and continuous improvement
Application process
- We aim to move as fast as possible. Usually 2-3 weeks is usually enough time for us all to get to know each other
- Step 1: An initial call with our Talent Team to learn more about your experience and why you want to work at Cleo
- Step 2: A craft interview with a Lead Designer to walk through some of your mobile app work and impact
- Step 3: A case study interview to present an example of design systems work with two of our design systems team
- Step 4: A final Values interview with cross-functional peers from either product, engineering, content or data
Salary benchmarks
Our take
People are increasingly not satisfied with the products being offered by traditional banks, which have proven slow to react to the needs of younger consumers who expect more from their everyday experiences.
Cleo was one of the first companies to make great use of chatbots that sit within Facebook's messenger app. This chatbot-first approach and Gen Z user base have given it strong virality. It now has millions of registered users, 99% of which are based in the US, leading to a decision to take a year break from the UK market to focus on its US Gen Z customers.
Its Series C funding will help the company to double down in the US, where it will make a significant increase in employee headcount, and enable Cleo to maintain and expand its service during an economic downturn.
Financial advice delivered via bots is a crowded space, so Cleo benefits from having a strong brand presence. It has gone for very bold, fun, Gen Z-focused messaging which helps it to stand out from competitors such as Emma, Plum, and Chip.
Kirsty
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
Many candidates hear
back within 2 weeks
43% female employees
24% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Employee endorsements
Nice people
"Cleople are unmatched. The vibes, the energy, the friendships. I genuinely love my colleagues and have developed real-life friendships. I don't know..."
Funding (last 2 of 5 rounds)
Jun 2022
$80m
SERIES C
Dec 2020
$44m
SERIES B
Total funding: $137.5m
Company benefits
- 25 days of Annual leave a year + public holidays (+ an additional day for every year you spend at Cleo)
- 401k matching in the US and 6% employer-matched pension in the UK
- Online courses, £150 annual budget & internal training to level up your skills
- Regular socials and activities, online and in-person
- Online mental health support via Spill
- 1 month paid sabbatical after every 4 years with Cleo
- OpenAI Plus subscription
- Electric vehicle salary sacrifice scheme and cycle-to-work scheme
- Life assurance and income protection via AIG
- Medical insurance via Axa and Healthcare cash plan via Medicash
- Performance reviews every 8 months. Generous pay increases for high performers and high-growth team members. Equity top-ups for team members getting promoted
Company values
- Make it Happen
- Learn at Speed
- Bring Good Vibes
Company HQ
London, UK
Leadership
Barnaby Hussey-Yeo
(CEO)Data Scientist at Wonga, one of the companies that pioneered the smart use of data for loan decisions. Joined Entrepreneur First where Cleo was formed.
People progressing
Joined Cleo straight from Makers Academy in 2018, and became Technical Lead in 2021.
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at Cleo
Annie Jackson (Head of Talent )
- We’ve set up an internal committee of truly passionate people that are dedicated to ensuring Diversity and Inclusion is embedded in how we all operate as a team. We agree on meaningful actions, and get on with implementing them. We have three main focuses right now, which are:
- 1) Improving SocioEconomic diversity across the company
- 2) Increasing the number of women in Leadership roles
- 3) More community outreach
- Check out our 2022 Diversity and Inclusion report, here: https://web.meetcleo.com/blog/cleo-diversity-equity-and-inclusion-report-2022
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