The Role
Lead end-to-end product design for strategic features: run discovery and user research, prototype and deliver high-fidelity UI, collaborate with product and engineering, and improve candidate experience to drive measurable business outcomes.
Summary Generated by Built In
At Zinc, we're building thoughtful, high-impact product experiences that transform how organisations build trust and transparency. Design sits at the heart of how we deliver value to customers, and we're looking for a Product Designer who combines strong craft with confident product thinking.
You'll own complex end-to-end design work across Zinc's B2B and B2B2C SaaS platforms, working closely with product managers, engineers, and customers. You'll operate with real autonomy, shape the direction of features, and raise the quality bar for the team around you. This is a role for someone who's ready to go beyond execution and start influencing how we design at Zinc.
Zinc designers own the solution. You'll shape how we respond to user needs, define the experience, and determine how it comes to life — working in close partnership with product and engineering.
- Designers lead research: setting the methods, driving the work, and synthesising what it means for the product direction.
- Designers have direct relationships with all customer-facing teams.
- Designers set the standard for experience quality at Zinc.
If you're a designer who wants real ownership, values craft, and is excited about the impact design can have inside a scaling B2B product company, we'd love to hear from you.
Key Responsibilities 🗝️
Lead on Your Features
Drive the design process end-to-end across your pod, from discovery through delivery. Use insights and data to make confident decisions, unblock challenges early, and ship work you're proud of alongside product and engineering.
Raise the Quality Bar
Bring high standards to every touchpoint. Give clear, constructive critique to peers. Set an example in how you approach craft, documentation, and handoff.
Think Beyond the Brief
Connect your design decisions to user needs and business goals. Ask the harder questions, spot the wider opportunity, and communicate your thinking with clarity and conviction.
Be Close to the Customer
Stay directly connected to customer-facing teams and real user feedback. Champion user-centred thinking in how the team prioritises and makes decisions.
Skills, Knowledge and Expertise 🚀
Hard Skills
User Research and Discovery -- Can independently plan and conduct qualitative research, synthesise insights, and turn them into clear design direction. At Zinc, research is a core design skill, not a handoff.
User Research and Discovery -- Can independently plan and conduct qualitative research, synthesise insights, and turn them into clear design direction. At Zinc, research is a core design skill, not a handoff.
UX/UI Design in Figma -- Strong proficiency across UX and UI. You design coherent, elegant end-to-end experiences and can articulate the rationale behind your decisions.
Workshop Facilitation and Presentation -- Comfortable leading collaborative sessions and presenting ideas with clarity. You can align a room and bring others along with you.
Design Systems -- Understands how to work within and contribute to a design system. Knows when to follow the pattern and when to question it. Able to create and document components in collaboration with engineers.
Strategic Product Thinking -- Connects design to product strategy. You're not just executing on briefs; you're helping shape them.
Data Analysis -- Comfortable using quantitative and qualitative product data to inform decisions and sharpen design outcomes.
Active curiosity about AI and emerging tools -- You actively explore tools like AI and look for genuine ways to apply them in your day-to-day workflow, backed by real experimentation rather than surface-level interest.
Soft SkillsPragmatism -- You balance ambition with feasibility, prioritising solutions that are achievable and impactful.
Empathy -- You understand customers and teammates deeply, and it shows in your work and how you show up for the people around you.
Communication -- You keep stakeholders aligned, give feedback well, and tell a clear story about your design decisions.
Curiosity -- You always ask why, digging into customer needs and continuously looking for better ways to solve problems.
🚀 Preferred skills:
- Experience working in a high-growth startup environment.
- Experience designing for B2B or B2B2C SaaS applications.
- Experience contributing to or working with established design systems - knowing when to follow the pattern and when to question it.
- Comfort using quantitative and qualitative product data to inform decisions and sharpen design outcomes.
- Active curiosity about AI and emerging tools, backed by genuine experimentation rather than surface-level interest.
- A basic understanding of front-end technologies (HTML, CSS, JavaScript) and their constraints.
💥 Experience Required:
- 3-5 years of experience in a product design or UX/UI role.
- A portfolio of work is required for consideration, demonstrating user research, problem-solving, and high-quality visual and interaction design.
- Proven track record of shipping products in a collaborative, agile environment.
🌸 Key Traits:
- High Autonomy: A self-starter who thrives on ownership, able to take a high-level goal and drive it forward with minimal oversight, proactively unblocking yourself and your team. Crucial for owning new, undefined strategic areas.
- Comfort with Ambiguity: You see a loosely defined problem as an opportunity to create clarity, and are energised by turning strategic ambiguity into a concrete plan.
- Pragmatism: You balance ambition with feasibility, knowing when to push for a perfect solution and when to make smart trade-offs to ship value iteratively.
- Empathy: You understand customers and teammates deeply, and it shows in your work and how you show up for the people around you.
- Collaborative Communicator: You excel at communicating design rationale to stakeholders from different disciplines, actively listen, and build strong partnerships with product managers and engineers.
- Curiosity: You always ask why, digging into customer needs and continuously looking for better ways to solve problems.
What we offer 🍉
Zinc offers a chance to work on a product that brings a fresh perspective on data ownership in hiring
- 24 days holiday + Bank Holidays + your birthday off 🎉
- £1200 annual benefits allowance (ThanksBen, from month 2)
- Early finish Fridays (16:00)
- Yearly company retreat abroad ✈️
- 30 days to Work from anywhere 🌍
- Enhanced Maternity, Paternity, and Adoption Leave (2 months full pay, then statutory)
- Statutory pension with NEST (3% employer, 5% employee)
- Zinc shares, issued through the EMI Scheme
- Unlimited access to MoreHappi coaching
- Company socials, quarterly team socials Free Monday lunches
- Nursery workplace benefit scheme (Yellownest)
- Option to lease an electric car through Electric Car Scheme
- Celebrated Zinc anniversaries 🥳
About
Who we are ⚡Zinc builds automated reference and background checking tools designed to improve candidate experience and set new industry standards. Founded in 2017 by a team with extensive HRTech experience, Zinc is an early-stage startup rapidly growing as it redefines efficiency, transparency, and fairness in background checks.📚Read more about our story here: https://zincwork.com/missionWe're a culture first company, by this we don't just mean an active calendar of both company and team organised events 🍔🍻🎯 (which we do have 🤩),Zinc's culture is defined by a respectful and autonomous approach to all employees, fostering support for new ideas, promoting a flexible work environment, and operating within a flat structure. While socials, lunches, and events enhance the experience, the core of Zinc's culture drives employees to embrace innovation, share successes, and feel motivated about the company's future.🪴We recently redefined our company values:🧩The pieces that make Zinc: Pragmatic, Integrity, Empathy, Collaborate, Empowered, Speed.
Skills Required
- 3-5 years of experience in product design or UX/UI
- Portfolio demonstrating user research, problem-solving, and high-quality visual and interaction design
- Experience running qualitative user research and synthesis (interviews, usability testing)
- Ability to manage end-to-end design: discovery, wireframing, prototyping, and developer handoff
- Proficiency with Figma or similar design/prototyping tools
- Proven track record of shipping products in an agile, collaborative environment
- Basic understanding of front-end technologies (HTML, CSS, JavaScript)
- Experience designing for B2B or B2B2C SaaS
- Experience contributing to or working with design systems
- Comfort using quantitative and qualitative product data to inform decisions
- Active curiosity and experimentation with AI and emerging design tools
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The Company
What We Do
Zinc builds automated reference and background checking tools designed to improve candidate experience and set new industry standards, offering automated pre-screening employment software for HR and recruiting teams to verify candidates' backgrounds and hire at scale.
