Zopa

Design System Lead

London, United Kingdom

Full-Time

TLDR

Lead a rebuilt design system as a strategic platform, scaling delivery and governance while guiding a small cross-functional team.

Our Story Hello there. We’re Zopa. We started our journey back in 2005, building the first ever peer-to-peer lending company. Fast forward to 2020 and we launched Zopa Bank. A bank that listens to what our customers don’t like about finance and does the opposite. We’re redefining what it feels like to work in finance. Our vision for a new era of banking puts people front and centre — we’ve built a business that empowers everyone to aim high, every day, to move finance forward. Find out more about our fantastic offerings at Zopa.com! We’re incredibly proud of our achievements and none of it would be possible without the amazing team here. It’s not just industry awards we’re winning, we’ve also been named in the top three UK’s Most Loved Workplaces. If you embrace unconventional challenges, are unafraid to think differently and are driven to make an outsized impact, you’ll thrive here at Zopa, so join us, and make it count. Want to see us in action? Follow us on Instagram @zopalife The Experience Design team is responsible for shaping the end-to-end customer experience across Zopa’s products. Within the team, the Design Systems function provides the foundations that allow product teams to move quickly while delivering consistent, high quality experiences. We’ve recently rebuilt our design system as part of our move to native, giving us a strong foundation for the future rather than a large legacy estate to untangle. This role is an opportunity to lead that next phase. You’ll own the design system as a strategic platform, helping us scale delivery, improve consistency, strengthen governance and unlock new ways of working through AI-assisted design and development. You’ll lead a small team and work closely with Product, Engineering and Design leaders to ensure the design system becomes a core enabler of how Zopa builds products in the years ahead. A day in the life:

Lead and develop a team consisting of a Design Systems Designer and Motion Designer

Define and evolve the governance, processes and operating model for Zopa’s design system

Partner closely with Mobile Engineering to ensure design and code systems remain aligned

Collaborate with Product, Design and Brand stakeholders on system adoption and evolution

Review and prioritise requests for new patterns, components and system enhancements

Define and track measures of system health, adoption, consistency and impact

Help product teams move faster by creating scalable, reusable foundations

Balance hands-on design systems work with strategic leadership and organisational influence

Shape how AI-enabled workflows can leverage the design system to improve delivery speed and quality

Drive consistency across customer experiences while making thoughtful trade-offs where needed

About you:

You’ve led a design system or platform design capability within a product organisation

You bring strong systems thinking across tokens, components, patterns, documentation and governance

You have experience partnering closely with Engineering and understand how design systems translate into code

You’re comfortable working across native mobile experiences

You’ve managed and developed designers and enjoy building high-performing teams

You use evidence and measurable outcomes to guide prioritisation and decision making

You’re confident setting boundaries, making trade-offs and influencing senior stakeholders

You can balance technical depth with strong communication and stakeholder management

You’re able to bring clarity and direction in environments that contain ambiguity

You combine strategic thinking with a pragmatic, delivery-focused mindset

Added bonus

Familiarity with design-to-code pipelines and token architecture

Experience embedding accessibility standards within design systems

Practical experience using AI or automation to improve design workflows

Experience with tools such as Figma MCP, Claude or ChatGPT

Experience in scaling organisations that have grown through multiple stages of maturity

At Zopa we value flexible ways of working.

We value face-to-face collaboration and a good work-life balance. This hybrid role requires you to come to our London office 2-3 days a week.

You'll also have the option of working from abroad for up to 120 days a year!* But no matter where you are, we’ll make sure you’ve got everything you need to thrive, both in your work and home life, from day one.

*Subject to having the right to work in the country of choice

Diversity Statement

Zopa is proud to offer a workplace free from discrimination. Diversity of experience, perspectives, and backgrounds leads to better products for our customers and a unique company culture for our people. We are made up of nearly 50 nationalities, have a DE&I forum made up of Zopians wanting to make a difference and we are proud of our culture where everyone can bring their full self to work. Our approach to DE&I is reflected in our hiring process so please let us know if you require any reasonable adjustments.

Benefits

Remote-Friendly

You'll also have the option of working from abroad for up to 120 days a year!

Apply for this job

Zopa

Zopa is a financial technology company that began as the first peer-to-peer lending platform in 2005 and evolved into Zopa Bank in 2020. It focuses on delivering customer-centric financial solutions that empower individuals to manage their finances more effectively.

Founded: Founded 2005
Employees: 201-500 employees
Industry: Diversified Financial Services
Total raised: $190M raised

View company profile