Lead Product Design

About us

We’re November Five. Makers, designers, strategists. Different backgrounds, one mindset. We say what we mean and do what we say. Passion walks in; expertise grows.

Feedback is direct. We’re hard on the facts, but kind on the people. We wear more than one hat, and we’re proud of it. We collaborate hard and we’re always looking for more people like us.

We’ve also built things of our own. Appmiral, Spencer, Gorilla, Wovian. Four ventures born inside November Five. When the right idea meets the right people, we build it. That’s not a side note. It’s part of who we are.

The challenge you’re walking into

Design as a discipline is changing fast. New tools, new methods, AI reshaping what designers do and how they do it. What was true three years ago isn’t necessarily true today, and the pace isn’t slowing down.

N5 already has strong design leadership. The vision is clear, the strategy is set. What we need now is someone who can hold the execution side while keeping one eye on where the field is going. Someone who still does real design work, and uses that to help the team around them get better at theirs.

This is a player-coach role. You’re not stepping back from the work to manage people. You’re in it, alongside them, raising the level of what we’re all capable of.

The brief

You’re our most capable product designer in the room. When a client engagement needs someone who can set the direction, make the hard calls, and show what good looks like, that’s you. The work spans strategy, interaction, service design, and visual craft, across clients like Coca-Cola, Telenet, and Le Pain Quotidien.

Alongside your own projects, you coach and support a team of product designers. Not by managing their schedules, but by working alongside them. Giving feedback that makes the next version better. Helping someone think through a problem they’re stuck on. Sharing what you know so the whole team raises its level.

You’re also the person who keeps track of where design is going. New tools, new methods, the shift that AI is creating in how designers work. You bring that back into the team so we stay sharp.

Why this role matters

Your impact travels through the team, but not because you oversee them. It’s because designers want you in the room. They know that asking for your input makes their work better. They come to you not because they have to, but because they want to.

That’s a different kind of influence. You’re not the person who blesses work before it ships. You’re the person who helps someone see what their work could be, and then gets out of the way so they can get there themselves.

Three things you’re critical for at N5:

• Keeping standards alive. Design standards only matter if they show up in the work. You’re not the final check. You’re the person who reminds the team what we stand for, early and often, so no one has to be reminded at the end.
• Design’s seat at the table. Clients trust design when someone credible leads it. You’re the reason design shapes decisions instead of just carrying them out. Without that, strategy stays on slides.

Helping designers become their best. Not by managing their growth, but by being someone they can learn from. The way you work, the feedback you give, the questions you ask: that’s what raises the level of the whole team.

Requirements

What you’ll own

Team and culture

• Hold fortnightly 1:1s, at minimum. Give feedback that makes the next version of someone’s work better. Help them see what their work could become, then get out of the way so they can get there.
• Keep design standards present in the work, not just at the end. You’re not the final check. You’re the person who reminds the team what we stand for, early enough that it shows up in the output.
• Own hiring end-to-end when roles open. Own the onboarding of new designers into how N5 works.
• Make it safe for people to say what they think and surface problems early. Model that yourself. Don’t tolerate behaviour that makes people feel unsafe doing it.
• Reduce friction between design, product, and engineering. Not by controlling the interfaces, but by making collaboration easier.

Design and craft

• Take on the complex engagements. Frame the problem, run the workshop, turn an ambiguous brief into something the team can act on.
• Own the full design process on key projects, from research and strategy through interaction design, UI, and prototyping.
• Raise the visual level of everything we ship. You have strong opinions on brand, visual design, and motion, and you use them. Not to redo other people’s work, but to show what it could be.
• Apply our MX™ design philosophy. Find the moments worth amplifying, remove the friction that costs customers trust, and know when less is the right call.
• Stay close