Leading the design team

In spring 2025, the Head of Product Design was unexpectedly made redundant, leaving the design team without formal design leadership. We were mid-delivery across multiple high-impact initiatives, and we needed to maintain both delivery momentum and design quality.

The design team was made up of 4 product designers, supporting 8 product teams, 4 customer facing and 4 internal. The team began to report to 3 different product managers, meaning that there was a risk of uncertainty and divergence around priorities, decision-making, and design standards.

In the absence of a design leader, I stepped into an acting Design Lead role to provide continuity, stability and direction for the team. I assumed accountability for team health, delivery quality and design leadership across the product organisation, while retaining hands-on responsibility for key product initiatives.

Considering the obvious absence of leadership and split reporting lines, my immediate focus was to minimise the risk of delivery divergence within the design team. Acting as the de-facto design lead, I took responsibility for guiding designers through ongoing projects, owning and facilitating design ceremonies and critiques, and maintaining a high bar of design quality.

I set and protected a clear quality bar, providing active feedback and decision support to designers working across memberships, physical card, smart settings and Snooze projects. I continued to work on key product initiatives, modelling what good looks like and demonstrating a high standard of design through hands-on contributions and actions.

I partnered closely with Product and Engineering leads to align on priorities, trade-offs and delivery expectations, ensuring design remained embedded in decision-making, rather than being bypassed without a leader at the table.

Creating direction and systems

Beyond delivery, I focused on strengthening the foundations of the design function through three key areas: Purpose, People and Process.

Purpose

I led a series of collaborative workshops to define a shared, holistic vision for the Zilch app, anchored around Inform, Spend and Manage. This gave the design team a shared language and ‘north star’ to inform a direction of travel and support tough conversations about priorities.

People

I reworked our product design career frameworks, design principles and ways of working to give designers clarity on expectations, progression and craft standards. This gave the design team a clearer sense of place, growth and expectation on how to be successful at Zilch.

Process

I rebuilt Zilch’s product design hiring and onboarding process, making it more respectful of applicants' time, leading to a successful hire and integration into the team. I managed and administered key tools in the product design stack including Figma and Mobbin. I led a successful procurement process to replace our legacy user testing platform, to better support our current ways of working and ideal outcomes.

Developing people

Alongside delivery and strategy, I prioritised the individual growth and health of the design team.

I ran regular informal mentoring and career development 1:1s across the team, with both a view of current problems and processes, but also future development ambitions and career growth. Across projects, I provided structured feedback, coaching and direction to support confidence, autonomy and decision-making, maintaining consistency and quality.

I was involved in supporting colleagues who were flagged as underperforming, to both understand the problems and put frameworks and techniques in place to get them back on track. I ran paired, co-working sessions, organised task management, and prioritisation to support a positive outcome.

Design principles

Alongside delivery and strategy, I prioritised the individual growth and health of the design team.

I ran regular informal mentoring and career development 1:1s across the team, with both a view of current problems and processes, but also future development ambitions and career growth. Across projects, I provided structured feedback, coaching and direction to support confidence, autonomy and decision-making, maintaining consistency and quality.

I was involved in supporting colleagues who were flagged as underperforming, to both understand the problems and put frameworks and techniques in place to get them back on track. I ran paired, co-working sessions, organised task management, and prioritisation to support a positive outcome.

The design team remained stable, engaged and delivery-focused despite the loss of formal leadership. Design quality was maintained across key initiatives, projects were completed with no design blockers, and the team emerged with clearer direction, stronger foundations and improved confidence in how we work together.

Reflection

Stepping into this role reinforced the importance of visible leadership, clear systems and consistent communication during periods of uncertainty.

The experience has deepened my understanding of how to lead with empathy, build cross-functional trust, and maintain design standards while still contributing as an IC. I’ve learned how to guide others’ while still designing myself, maintaining a good balance between leadership and hands-on design contribution. Balancing those leadership duties with my own hands-on work taught me how to guide a team without losing touch with the craft, and confirmed that supporting and enabling others to do their best work is one of the most rewarding parts of my role.