Lead Product Designer

CompanyYoto

LocationLondon Area, United Kingdom

Posted At1/16/2026

UK Visa Sponsorship Analytics

Occupation Type

Design occupations not elsewhere classified.

Occupation Code Skill LevelMedium Skilled

Sponsorship Salary Threshold

£41,700 (£21.38 per hour)

Standard minimum applies

Above analytics are generated algorithmically based on job titles and may not always be the same as the company's job classification. You can also check detailed occupation eligibility, and salary criteria on our UK Visa Eligible Occupations & Salary Thresholds page.

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Description

We’re looking for a Lead Product Designer to join our Product Design team to lead the Player Experience cluster, shaping how families discover, set up, and enjoy Yoto every day.

About Yoto

Yoto is a screen-free interactive audio platform for kids. We make carefully connected audio players that kids control, with no microphones, cameras or ads. We have a catalogue of audio that inspires creative play and learning with 1,000+ titles in our card store from top creators, publishers and labels - think Disney, Marvel, Roald Dahl and Universal Music. We also create Yoto Originals like BrainBots.

Voted the 14th fastest-growing private software technology company in Britain in The Sunday Times 100 Tech 2025; and named the 94th fastest-growing company in Europe in the prestigious FT1000.
Ranked 9th in Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies in 2024; and featured in the Sifted 100 fastest-growing startups across the UK&I by revenue growth.
Featured in Bloomberg’s 25 UK startups to watch in 2023; and ranked second fastest growing tech company in the UK in the Deloitte Fast50.
Named one of TIME Magazine’s Top 100 Inventions of 2020.

We’re over 200 employees spread across the world.. and growing!

We’re on a mission to be the soundtrack of childhood, and help families on their own unique adventures. By creating products that inspire independent play, we help families discover and grow with an inspiring world of audio - and we would like you to help us achieve it!

Yoto’s Product Design Team

The Product Design team at Yoto shapes how families experience our audio players and the digital ecosystem around them. This Lead Product Designer role is a true player–coach position, combining hands-on design work with sustained people leadership across the Player Experience cluster.

The cluster focuses on some of the most important moments in a family’s journey, from first-time setup and early engagement, to everyday listening, playback, and content discovery. This role carries responsibility not just for the quality of individual design outcomes, but for how multiple designers, squads, and partners come together to deliver cohesive, intuitive experiences at scale. By setting clear direction, making thoughtful trade-offs, and supporting others to do their best work, this role plays a key part in helping Yoto inspire imagination without screens.

What you’ll be doing:

Owning design outcomes across the Player Experience cluster, leading work spanning player setup, playback experiences, core app foundations, and content discovery, while taking accountability for the quality, coherence, and impact of what ships, and ensuring design decisions connect clearly to customer and business outcomes
Line managing and coaching designers across multiple squads, setting clear expectations, supporting progression, managing performance, and developing future design leaders, while creating an environment of trust, focus, and psychological safety, and raising the overall maturity of design leadership within the team
Operating as a player–coach, spending a portion of your time hands-on designing within the Content Discovery squad, while also ensuring other designers are supported, unblocked, and delivering high-quality work
Setting and evolving design direction in close partnership with the Head of Design and other Lead and Principal Product Designers, aligning work across squads and influencing cross functional partners such as marketing, hardware, content, and customer support to ensure design intent is understood and upheld end to end

Making design decisions under ambiguity, navigating competing priorities, differing opinions, and real-world constraints, and helping teams commit to clear direction even when there’s no perfect answer

Working closely with Heads of Product, Engineering, Brand and more to prioritise effectively, resolve tension, turn complex and open ended problems into clear actionable plans, and strengthen how design partners with other functions across the business

Raising the overall bar for craft and quality, not just through your own work, but through critique, coaching, and feedback that helps designers consistently deliver strong usability, visual design, and interaction design

Contributing to long term capability building across design and research, improving ways of working, identifying skill and process gaps, and helping shape how product design operates and is perceived across Yoto as the company continues to grow

What you’ll bring:

Essential

Extensive experience as a product designer and design leader, with proven people leadership responsibility for setting direction, managing performance, and supporting the growth of other designers through both success and challenge

A proven track record of leading multiple designers and complex problem spaces simultaneously, balancing hands-on contribution with oversight, prioritisation, and decision-making

Strong experience designing across native apps and web, with an understanding of how experiences need to adapt across platforms while remaining consistent

A consistently high bar for visual and interaction design, paired with strong discovery, problem-framing, and research collaboration skills

Strong people leadership skills, including goal setting, feedback, performance conversations, and coaching others through growth, uncertainty, and change

The ability to bring clarity to ambiguity, make prioritisation decisions that stick, and help teams focus on work that delivers the greatest customer and business impact

Nice to have

Experience working on consumer products used daily by families or children
Experience designing for hardware-adjacent or connected products

Salary: £90,000 - £100,000 based on experience. We never want to miss out on great candidates, so don’t let our banding put you off reaching out - there’s sometimes flexibility for the right fit!

What you can expect from Yoto:

Flexibility: Hybrid working - expectation of 1 day a week on average in our London office, but you are welcome to come in more than this. How you meet the minimum expectation is up to you, to ensure you're happy and productive in your role whilst also getting that vital face time with your colleagues. Take advantage of our ‘work from anywhere’ policy to work from a different location for up to 6 weeks every year. Summer Hours policy to use between the months of June and August.
Financial: Receive Income Protection, covering long term sickness for up to 2 years and company sick pay that increases with length of service. Life Assurance cover from day one of your service. Workplace Pension offering up to to 3% employer contributions, following probation. Generous employee referral bonus scheme.
Health & Wellness: Private Medical Insurance via Aviva, or a Wellbeing Allowance to be used for memberships, subscriptions, treatment or therapy. Access to 24/7 Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) through WeCare and unlimited access to Dental advice and guidance via Toothfairy. Bike to work scheme to promote healthier lifestyles.

Time Off: 25 days of holiday per year, plus bank holidays. On top of this, you also receive your birthday off, plus 1 extra day of holiday for every year worked after you hit your 2 year anniversary, up to 5 extra days. After 4 years of service, you are also eligible for our sabbatical policy offering up to 3 months' of unpaid sabbatical.

Helping Families: Variety of family-friendly leave, including enhanced maternity, paternity, adoption, fertility, pregnancy loss and carers leave. Unlock savings with our workplace nursery scheme, designed to support parents of preschool-aged children.

People & Planet: Up to 2 volunteer days a year. A Book Allowance of up to £50 a year to contribute to your professional development.

Fun Perks: You receive your very own Yoto player and starter pack of cards! Regular company socials and celebrations, including our annual YotoFest!

Equity and Diversity

At Yoto, we love creating a world where childhood is rich with discovery and joy. We’re also passionate about building a workplace where everyone can thrive - both professionally and personally. We value flexibility and give our team the freedom to balance life and work in ways that suit them.

We're committed to fostering a safe, diverse, and inclusive environment where all individuals, regardless of their background, feel valued and supported. Our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion group holds bi-monthly forums to elevate diverse voices and perspectives, ensuring everyone at Yoto feels heard, respected, and appreciated.

We don’t just embrace differences - we celebrate them. We share audio content from a vibrant and diverse community of creators (check out our DEI selection), and we are building a team that reflects that same diversity. We invite candidates from all walks of life to explore opportunities with us and join a company that champions flexibility, equity, and inclusion. Take a look at our website for more information on our approach to People and Planet.

Please only apply or engage with Yoto jobs posted on our careers page (careers.yotoplay.com or careers.yotoplay.com/en). All correspondence from our Talent team will only come through Teamtailor, our application tracking system.