Senior Product Designer - 3 Month Contract

Changing the world of pet food for good

We’re Tails.com, a dog food subscription company with a big difference. We create truly tailored food for each and every dog we serve. We start by asking people a few simple questions about their dog. Then we use that information to create their dog’s unique Tails.com recipe – so their dog gets exactly the nutrition they need, in the taste they love, delivered to their door every month. It’s clever stuff.

We’ve got bold plans. Having created an entirely new category in pet food, we’re now scaling fast – backed by Purina, one of the world’s largest pet food companies. You’ll join a bunch of smart people working towards the same goals – and a bunch of smart-ish dogs, all working on their own thing.

Together, we’ll change the world of pet food for good.

Designed to delight our customers
Join Product Design at Tails.com, and you’ll be right in the midst of the action – designing product experiences that delight our customers. No one does what we do in the direct-to-consumer space, so it’s your chance to really make your mark.

We work in collaborative, cross-functional squads - engineers, designers, researchers, data analysts, QA’s, and anyone else it takes to make great things happen. Some days it’s about quick, tactical wins; other days it’s about digging into the big, knotty problems and solving them together.

Importantly, we’re a strong team of designers who work both collaboratively together, challenging ourselves and our work, as well as within and across our Product teams and Squads.

Sound like a team you’d like to work with? Here’s how you’ll make a difference:

The contract role
We are seeking an experienced Contract Senior Product Designer. You will bring a passion for finding solutions that deliver usable and joyful experiences to our dog loving customers in the UK and beyond. The ideal candidate will be skilled at each stage of the design process, but always focused on the needs of the customer.

You will work with other designers and cross-functional team members and will rely heavily on both qualitative and quantitative data to make informed decisions.

This role is best suited to a strong Contract Senior Product Designer with solid UI / visual design skills in a digital product environment, who cares deeply about creating compelling digital customer experiences.

Understanding how to position the benefits of our products and services to drive customer and commercial value through easily understood, engaging and compelling design forms a key part of this role.

You will be responsible for:
Product Design & Delivery

• Participation in end-to-end discovery, and proficiency in design processes including wireframing, prototyping, visual design, interaction design, and usability testing
• Partner with Product Managers, User Researchers, Engineers, Content, and cross-functional teams to shape product direction
• Transform customer insights into valuable, usable, and delightful products that solve real customer problems
• Use design as a tool for rapid learning and validation in a fast-paced, iterative environment
• Present design concepts, rationale, and vision to cross-functional teams and leadership

Visual & Interaction Design Excellence

• Craft high-quality, polished user interfaces with meticulous attention to detail
• Set the standard for visual and interaction design quality across the digital product in close collaboration with the Creative/Brand teams to keep a cohesive experience across all touchpoints
• Contribute to and help maintain design systems, component libraries, and design documentation
• Ensure design consistency and coherent customer experiences across all touchpoints

Mentorship & Collaboration

• Mentor and support Junior Product Designers, sharing knowledge and best practices
• Provide constructive design feedback and guidance to help team members grow their craft
• Collaborate with other designers to ensure consistent communication and design quality
• Act as a design advocate, raising the bar for design thinking and champion product design across the business through compelling storytelling and presentations

Strategic Thinking & Customer Focus

• Demonstrate an intuitive eye for customer needs beyond the obvious, anticipating unspoken requirements
• Collect and interpret qualitative and quantitative feedback to inform design decisions
• Stay current on industry trends, market conditions, and emerging design practices to inform design decisions, such as use of AI in our design practice as well as how we design for it across our digital estate
• Challenge the status quo with creative problem-solving and a continuous improvement mindset
• Advocate for a balance between customer and business needs supporting both customer experience, and revenue and metrics

The skills you’ll bring:
Design Excellence

• 5+ years of product design experience with proven expertise across all phases of the design process
• Strong portfolio demonstrating user-centred products with exceptional UI quality and measurable impact
• Expert visual design skills with a keen eye for typography, colour, layout, and micro-interactions
• Advanced interaction design abilities with a deep understanding of usability principles
• Strong creative / brand background is beneficial to the role

Tools & Methods

• Highly proficient in Figma
• Experience with prototyping tools and handoff processes for engineering collaboration
• Key contributor to developing and maintaining our design systems, component libraries, and design documentation to scale quality
• Strong understanding of usability testing methods and research synthesis as well as being comfortable conducting your own research studies across projects
• Working with Product Management on ticket and specification writing using tools like Jira and Confluence

Mindset & Approach

• Passion for design with creative problem-solving abilities and strong attention to detail
• Comfortable with ambiguity and rapid change
• Customer-obsessed with ability to balance user needs and business goals
• Collaborative team player who builds strong cross-functional relationships
• Self-motivated and able to work autonomously while knowing when to seek input

What’s next?
If this sounds like it matches your experience and what you’d love to do, we can’t wait to hear from you! If you’re unsure whether you fit our criteria exactly, please get in touch anyway. And because we believe that diverse teams perform better, we’d especially love to hear from you if you’re from an underrepresented demographic.

Here’s a taster of how our recruitment process works:

1. A single hiring manager interview with portfolio review (45 mins).