Principal Product Designer

About Cleo

At Cleo, we're not just building another fintech app. We're embarking on a mission to fundamentally change humanity's relationship with money. Imagine a world where everyone, regardless of background or income, has access to a hyper-intelligent financial advisor in their pocket. That's the future we're creating.

Cleo is a rare success story: a profitable, fast-growing unicorn with over $200 million in ARR and growing over 2x year-over-year. This isn't just a job; it's a chance to join a team of brilliant, driven individuals who are passionate about making a real difference. We have an exceptionally high bar for talent, seeking individuals who are not only at the top of their field but also embody our culture of collaboration and positive impact.

If you’re driven by complex challenges that push your expertise, the chance to shape something truly transformative, and the potential to share in Cleo’s success as we scale, while growing alongside a company that’s scaling fast, this might be your perfect fit.

Follow us on LinkedIn to keep up to date with new product features and insights from the team.

On the frontier of design

We're moving through uncharted territory with brand new design challenges around chat, UI, brand, ToV and applied machine learning that you can't just look up the answer to. We're a small but growing design team with an excellent bunch of engineers who are building faster than we can design. And of course, we are solving money problems that make a very real and tangible difference to our users.

About the Role:

As Cleo’s first Principal Product Designer you’ll play a pivotal role in delivering our company objective to design a world-class app experience that our users love.

Reporting to our VP, Design and working closely with our Product Design Managers, you’ll be responsible for identifying and delivering organisation-wide transformational impact through a wide variety of projects across all our squads and our newly created Experience Platform team.

Additionally, your expertise will help set and establish the highest design standards for the quality that our team delivers and the way they work.

Key Responsibilities: 

• Working across Cleo’s pillars and squads to support design managers in bringing clarity and focus to the design team’s vision and impact on OKRs
• Play a key role in establishing and maintaining exceptional levels of design craft and execution across the Cleo user experience
• Strategically, proactively and autonomously identify and pitch for opportunities to deliver impact on Cleo’s product strategy
• Partner with senior stakeholders across product, engineering, data, marketing and wider business teams advocating for user-centred design and customer obsession in bringing company-wide initiatives to life
• Support design leadership in establishing and maintaining a happy, inclusive and productive working culture that helps everyone do their best work

What We’re Looking For:

• You’ve got a proven track record of designing best in class, impactful consumer app experiences in multiple companies as a senior IC or Design leader
• Your work shows the highest levels of craftsmanship in visual, UI, interaction design, prototyping and strong appreciation for bringing brand into the user experience
• You are experienced and comfortable driving impact at the organisation level with context across multiple product areas
• You bring a ‘make it happen’ mindset - proactive in finding the most impactful user and business problems to solve, self-sufficiently gathering insights and data to validate, and quickly able to bring your vision to life
• You have exceptional relationship building and communication skills that enable you to partner with and influence the success of teams across Cleo
• You’ve previously helped to elevate the bar on the quality of design work and been a force multiplier for the design team’s impact throughout a company

How long will the process take?

We aim to move as fast as possible. Usually 3-4 weeks is enough time for us all to get to know each other.

• Step 1: An initial intro phone call with a member of our Talent Team to learn more about your experience and why you want to work at Cleo
• Step 2: An interview with our VP, Design to look at work examples of innovative and strategic design execution and your work experience
• Step 3: A case study presenting with two design managers a more in depth example of transformational impact you have delivered
• Step 4: 2x 45 minutes interviews: one focused on Commercial impact and Leadership and a Cleo values interview with cross-functional peers from design, engineering and tech teams 

What do you get for all your hard work?

• A competitive compensation package (base + equity) with bi-annual reviews, aligned to our quarterly OKR planning cycles. This role is PD6 level. You can view our public progression framework and salary bandings here: https://cleo-ai.progressionapp.com/ 
• Work at one of the fastest-growing tech startups, backed by top VC firms, Balderton & EQT Ventures
• A clear progression plan. We want you to keep growing. That means trying new things, leading others, challenging the status quo and owning your impact. Always with our complete support. 
• Flexibility. We can’t fight for the world’s financial health if we’re not healthy ourselves. We work with everyone to make sure they have the balance they need to do their best work
• Work where you work best. We’re a globally distributed team. If you live in London we have a hybrid approach, we’d love you to spend one day a week or more in our beautiful office. If you’re outside of London, we’ll encourage you to spend a couple of days with us a few times per year. And we’ll cover your travel costs, naturally.
• Other benefits;
• Company-wide performance reviews every 6 months 
• Generous pay increases for high-performing team members
• Equity top-ups for team members getting promoted
• 25 days annual leave a year + public holidays (+ an additional day for every year you spend at Cleo, up to 30 days)
• 6% employer-matched pension in the UK
• Private Medical Insurance via Vitality, dental cover, and life assurance
• Enhanced parental leave
• 1 month paid sabbatical after 4 years at Cleo
• Regular socials and activities, online and in-person
• We'll pay for your OpenAI subscription
• Online mental health support via Spill
• Workplace Nursery Scheme 
• And many more!

We strongly encourage applications from people of colour, the LGBTQ+ community, people with disabilities, neurodivergent people, parents, carers, and people from lower socio-economic backgrounds.

If there’s anything we can do to accommodate your specific situation, please let us know.

UK App access: The Cleo app is no longer downloadable in the UK (but only until next year). If you’re an existing user, you’ll still have access to the app. But some features won’t be available (just for a little while). Why? 99% of our users are based in the US – where financial health is often overlooked. We’ve decided to shift our focus to where we can provide the most value and make the greatest impact for users who need it most. Then we’ll be able to apply what we learn to better support our UK users in the future.