Principal Experience Designer

Excited to grow your career?

Our purpose is to make it easy for people to save and invest for a better future. We are looking for great people to join us, so please come and invest in YOUR future at HL.

We know that sometimes people can be put off applying for a job if they don't tick every box. If you're excited about working for us and have most of the skills or experience we're looking for, please go ahead and apply. We'd love to hear from you

About the Role

We're looking for a Principal Experience Designer to lead at a strategic level-delivering and evolving the experience design strategy across the organisation and multiple product tribes. This is a high-impact role for a cross-functional, full-stack design leader who can translate vision into scalable systems and innovative, user-centred experiences.

You'll take ownership of complex, large-scale design challenges-shaping end-to-end product and service experiences that deliver measurable value. By aligning user needs with business priorities, you'll help influence direction, improve client outcomes, and drive key organisational KPIs.

A champion of design-led transformation, you'll lead cross-functional collaboration, engage with senior stakeholders, and embed design as a strategic lever for growth. Your deep expertise across UX, UI, content, research, and service design will elevate the quality and consistency of design while validating the impact of design thinking.

You'll also play a vital role in shaping culture-facilitating knowledge sharing, championing best practices and governance, and mentoring future design leaders. Your contribution will help grow a high-performing, empowered design team that thrives on collaboration, purpose, and impact.

Hargreaves Lansdown is going through an exciting period of change, and Design and Research sits at the core of the biggest digital transformation the company has gone through - and we're reinventing ourselves to match the ambition. Our focus is simple: create seamless end-to-end experiences, powered by insight, that put our clients at the centre. We're building a future-fit team of full-stack designers and researchers accountable for crafting intuitive, cohesive journeys, shaping strategy through evidence, bringing clarity to complexity, and championing real user needs. Overhauling our ways of working to drive greater efficiency, raise the effectiveness of what we deliver and enable opportunity for development and growth. Energised by a shared mission to unlock our collective potential and set a new standard for what design and research can achieve bringing our future vision to life.

What you'll be doing

• Leading experience design across a portfolio of end-to-end journeys, crafting holistic design solutions that integrate UX, UI, content, and service design layers
• Delivering the strategy for experience design and content across the organisation, setting the vision and direction
• Driving cross-functional discovery, aligning teams on direction, embedding user insight and data and championing a client-first mindset
• Identifying pain points and lead on iterative design optimisations to continually improve the overall experience
• Partnering closely with product managers, researchers, engineers, marketers, and compliance to shape end-to-end journeys
• Innovating with new features that enhance the client experience, reflecting industry best practice and latest trends
• Building and refine design systems, ensuring alignment with brand, accessibility, and compliance requirements
• Representing the design perspective at enterprise-level, managing senior stakeholders and influencing high-level decisions
• Partnering with researchers, analysts, and product leads to inform direction and to validate and iterate solutions
• Inspiring and empower designers and researchers to deliver the highest quality of design work and deliver a best-in-class experience
• Mentoring and coach senior and mid-level designers across teams, embedding best practices, user-centred thinking and empathy
• Shaping the design culture, promoting accountability, continuous learning, experimentation, and inclusive design

About you

• Significant experience in Product/UX/UI/Content design with a strong portfolio of impactful work across industries, products, or platforms
• Advanced skills in end-to-end design, interaction modelling, microcopy, and visual design
• Systems thinker with a track record of improving and scaling design maturity
• Deep understanding of usability, accessibility, user psychology, and performance metrics
• Experience collaborating with and influencing C-suite or senior leadership
• Deep understanding of product development processes, design thinking, and agile methodologies
• Strong communication, facilitation, and storytelling skills
• Experience mentoring and nurturing a team of designers and contributing to team development
• Fluency with Figma, prototyping tools, design systems, research ops and QA pipelines
• Degree in Product Design, UX/UI Design or related field
• Experience working in enterprise or multi-platform (web, mobile, service) environments
• Good knowledge of accessibility, inclusive design, user psychology, performance metrics and latest industry trends

Interview process

The interview process for this role will include one stage with a task.

Working Schedule

This role is based in our Bristol head office (BS1 5HL) and we offer a hybrid working pattern, with a minimum of two days in the office per week.

Why us?

Here at HL, we're the UK's number 1 investment platform for private investors, based in Bristol. For more than 40 years we've helped investors save time, tax and money on their investments.

To achieve our mission, we believe we have a workplace like no other, with constant learning, dynamic teams, and a great ethos. We're steered by core values that promote service, quality, innovation, and opportunity in everything we do.

What's on offer?

• Discretionary annual bonus* and annual pay review
• 25 days* holiday plus bank holidays and 1-day additional Christmas closure
• Option to purchase an additional 5 days holiday**
• Flexible working options available, including hybrid working
• Enhanced parental leave
• Pension scheme up to 11% employer contribution
• Income Protection and Life insurance (4 x salary core level of cover)
• Private medical insurance*
• Health care cash plans - including optical, dental, and out patientcare
• Health screening programme
• - confidential support including mental health counselling and remote GP
• Wellhub - unlimited access to fitness providers and wellness coach sessions
• Variety of travel to work schemes with bike storage and shower facilities
• Inhouse barista and deli serving subsidised coffee and sandwiches
• Two paid volunteering days per year

* dependant on role level

** only available to select during our annual benefits window, in November each year

Hargreaves Lansdown is an inclusive employer that values diversity in its workforce. We encourage applications from all individuals without regard to race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, disability or age.

This role may also be available on a flexible working or part time basis - please ask the Recruitment & Onboarding team for more information.

Please note, we are unable to provide employment sponsorship to candidates.