Digital Experience Design Lead

Closing Date: 5 November 2024

Ref 6853

Save the Children UK has an exciting opportunity for an experienced Digital Experience Design Lead to join our forward thinking DDaT team.

About Us

Save the Children UK believes every child deserves a future. In the UK and around the world, we work every day to give children a healthy start in life, the opportunity to learn and protection from harm. When crisis strikes, and children are most vulnerable, we are always among the first to respond and the last to leave. We ensure children's unique needs are met and their voices are heard. We deliver lasting results for millions of children, including those hardest to reach.

About Digital, Data and Technology at Save the Children UK

We have set out an ambitious vision for Digital, Data and Technology (DDaT) at Save the Children.

We see Digital, Data and Technology as the catalysts that will drive our organisational transformation. We want to empower DDaT experts with the agility and customer-centricity to meet the ever-changing needs of their stakeholders, our supporters, and the external context.

We are now working to realise that vision. Our ambitious 3-year strategy sets out to shift us from a traditional IT function with scattered digital and data expertise into a more cohesive user experience-first, product-based approach. As part of a wider organisation change agenda (currently called the Organisation of the Future), we are looking to DDaT to facilitate a lighter process footprint aligned with Agile values, and a digital ready and data enabled workplace.

About the role

As part of our organisation wide transformation programme, Save the Children has been on a journey to be more agile, data driven and customer experience oriented. The Digital Experience Design Lead will play a leading role in driving forward and embedding customer-centric design thinking and capabilities across our digital experiences. The role-holder will lead on developing the systems and standards to ensure that design of digital products and services has the needs of our users, whether they be supporters, staff or partners.

Collaborating other design specialists across the organisation, you'll help develop a systematic approach to increasing the organisation's design maturity and champion and lead communities of practice. You'll spot opportunities and collaborate with other specialists to make them a reality. You'll help launch test propositions, optimise existing experiences, operations and services, and know how to harness learnings and rapidly iterate.

Working within multi-disciplinary teams to deliver ambitious results, you'll be a great collaborator: building strong relationships and cutting through boundaries, in a fast-moving and dynamic environment. Leveraging agile principles, you'll flex and adapt - learning rapidly and responding to change, while keeping users at the heart of everything you do.

In this role, you will be responsible for:

• Lead and coach the design function within the Digital Product & Design team, building a strong team by recruiting, mentoring, and developing talent.
• Lead sourcing, relationships and management of external design partners and freelancers.
• Collaborating with other design specialist, to develop and execute a strategic plan to increase the organisation's design maturity by refining capabilities, workflows, and building leadership and team buy-in.
• Champion customer-centric design thinking across the organisation, ensuring that all product developments and enhancements are driven by real user needs and insights.
• Define, implement, and embed comprehensive approaches to Experience, Product, and UX design, including establishing design communities of practice.
• Lead the delivery of user-centric digital products and features by collaborating with cross-functional teams to solve complex design problems and minimize risks.
• Communicate design decisions, design changes and requirements through presentations and other documentation where required.
• Guide Agile teams in customer journey mapping, prototyping, and testing, ensuring solutions are designed with users at the core.
• Mentor teams and colleagues in Design Thinking methodologies, tools, and best practices, fostering a culture of innovation.
• Staying up to date with the latest trends, technologies, and best practices in experience design. They provide thought leadership and guidance on emerging UX trends and innovations.
• Promote activities and behaviours that align with diversity, inclusion, and accessibility best practices, ensuring that digital experiences comply with legislation and provide equal access to all users.

The Digital Experience Design Lead is to carry out the responsibilities of the role in a way which reflects:

• Save the Children's commitment to safeguarding children in accordance with the Child Safeguarding Policy
• A commitment to Save the Children's vision, mission, values and approach
• A commitment to effective management of risk, by operating within the Charity's code of conduct, policies, procedures and controls and by carrying out the risk management and assurance responsibilities of the role as set out in the Risk Policy and Procedure

About you

Essential experience, skills and qualifications:

• Experience leading, recruiting, and developing a team of designers with varying levels of ability.
• A deep understanding of customer-led product design, an opportunity and solution-based mindset, and a curiosity for innovation.
• A portfolio demonstrating excellent customer-led product and experience design case studies, backed by customer data and user research.
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to articulate design vision and execute product strategies to senior leadership and stakeholders.
• Inspirational leadership that advocates for team development and is driven by helping others reach their potential.

What we offer you:

Working for a charity provides one of the best benefits there is - a sense of purpose and reward for helping others. However, we understand the importance of giving back to our employees to ensure a happy and healthy working environment and work/life balance.

We focus on flexibility, inclusion, collaboration, health and wellbeing both in and outside of work. We provide a wide range of benefits which will reward your hard work, motivate you, and inspire you to work to improve the lives of children every day.

Please note: To avoid disappointment, you are advised to submit your application as soon as possible as we reserve the right to close the vacancy early if a high volume of applications are received. This is to ensure that we can manage application levels whilst maintaining a positive candidate experience. Unfortunately once a vacancy has closed, we are unable to consider further applications.

Ways of Working:

The majority of our roles can be performed remotely in the UK, but there are likely to be times when you will be required to come to your contracted office (up to 2-4 days per month or 6-8 days per quarter). This will be agreed with your Line Manager and team and is intended to be time spent on collaborating with colleagues and relationship building.

Please note: travel costs to your contracted office will be at your own expense.

Flexible Working - We are happy to discuss flexible working options at interview.

Commitment to Diversity & Inclusion:

Save the Children UK believes in a world that is fair, inclusive and equitable where all children have the opportunity to change their world. We apply this to our workforce and we are committed to developing and supporting a diverse, equitable, and inclusive organisation where all employees have a sense of belonging and feel that they can be "Free to Be Me". We are not looking for just one type of person - we want to recruit people who can add fresh perspectives, innovative ideas or challenge that disrupts the risk of group think.

We are especially interested in people whose childhood experiences - of life on a low income, of migration, of being in a racialised community, of the care system, of being LGBT+ or in an LGBT+ family or living with (or with someone with) a disability - help us to see things we might otherwise miss. Whatever your story is we want to hear it because we know that different voices, ideas, perspectives and knowledge, working together will enable us to better the lives of children around the world. This is the reason why we are all here.