Twinkl Ltd on cord

Twinkl Ltd

Principal Product Designer

External position
Hiring internally for Twinkl Ltd?
EdTech
We help those who teach.
Active
over 6 months ago
Posted
a week ago
Checked
cord regularly checks that external positions are still open
2 days ago

Skills & Experience

Job roles: UX Designer, Product Manager
Experience level: Lead, Leadership
Core skills considered: Adobe XD, Figma, WCAG
Other skills considered: User Research, Prototyping, Project Management

Logistics

Base salary: Undisclosed
Some companies on cord are unable to disclose salaries publicly due to internal company policies. Message the company for salary information.
Employment type: Permanent
Remote working: Hybrid
Visa sponsorship: Not available

Job Description

We're looking for an experienced Principal Product Designer to own the direction of our design system. The system spans customer-facing and B2B products across web and mobile, and it is the lever that lifts quality, consistency and delivery speed everywhere at once. You will define what the system covers and how it is governed, you will build a large part of it yourself, and you will get it adopted by designers and engineers who have their own roadmaps to hit. This is a hands-on individual contributor role who will set the standard through the work and through influence.


Ongoing projects/how you'll spend your day:

  • Design system direction and governance: Define what the design system is for, what it covers and where it stops, and turn that into design principles and a roadmap other teams can plan against. Establish how the system is governed: how a component is proposed, reviewed, versioned, deprecated and documented, and who decides. Own the review gates that keep the system coherent as more people contribute to it.
  • Building the system: Design and ship the system itself, hands on. Components, composed modules and page templates, built for the real range of states, breakpoints, themes and content that Twinkl's products throw at them. Own the token layer, from foundations through to the semantic tokens product teams actually use, and resolve the intricate edge cases nobody else has been able to close out.
  • Adoption and enablement: Treat adoption as the measure of success rather than the size of the library. Work alongside engineering on the coded implementation so design and code stay one system rather than two, run contribution and office-hours forums, write the guidance, and make it easier to use the system than to work around it. Anticipate the dependencies across product, engineering and platform work that decide whether a release lands.
  • Accessibility and inclusion as a system property: Build WCAG 2.2 AA conformance into the components themselves, so accessible behaviour, focus handling, semantics and contrast are inherited by default rather than rebuilt per feature. Challenge design and technical assumptions that would exclude educators or learners, and hold the standard in reviews.
  • Leverage customer insights: Partner with the UXR and customer insights teams to understand how educators and learners actually move through our products, and turn that into system-level decisions, information architecture and patterns rather than one-off fixes. Frame the underlying user problem precisely, so the system solves it once for everybody.
  • Measuring the system: Define the measures that show whether the system is working, including adoption, design and code parity, drift, detach rates and time saved on delivery. Use that evidence to decide what to build next, what to retire, and where to push back, and build the narrative that helps senior stakeholders see the trade-offs.
  • End-to-end design on high-stakes work: Take the hardest journeys yourself, from problem framing through to implementation-ready specification and prototypes. This is where new patterns get proven before they enter the system, and it keeps the system honest about what shipping actually requires.
  • Mentoring and raising the craft: Coach designers and engineers on using and extending the system well, review their work, and advocate for design across the organisation. You will not have direct reports, and you will still be the person people bring their hardest craft problem to.

To succeed in the role, you will:

  • Be Systems-Minded: See the pattern behind the request, and know when to solve one team's problem and when to solve it once for everyone. Judge when a component belongs in the system and when it should stay local.
  • Demonstrate Strong Leadership: Set direction and lift the standard across several product areas without formal authority, taking responsibility for the collective result rather than only your own output.
  • Communicate Effectively & Collaboratively: Explain complex system decisions and their trade-offs clearly to designers, engineers, product managers and senior stakeholders, and bring people with you when the answer is not the one they wanted.
  • Be Detail-Oriented: Hold a very high bar on craft, naming, documentation and consistency, because in a design system a small error is inherited by every product that uses it.
  • Manage Projects Efficiently: Run system work alongside product delivery, sequencing it so teams are never blocked waiting on a component, and estimating honestly.
  • Be Adaptable & have a growth mindset: Thrive in a fast-paced, dynamic environment, adapt when priorities shift, and stay open to being shown a better answer.

We're interested in people that have:

  • At least 3 years defining, setting and governing a design system, including its scope, principles, contribution and review model, versioning and deprecation.
  • 5+ years hands-on delivery of design system components, modules and templates, in production and in use by other teams.
  • At least 8 years of experience in product design focused on user-centred design projects across web and apps, preferably education technology or related industry.
  • Demonstrable experience of design tokens and theming, and of keeping a design library and its coded implementation in step.
  • Proficiency in Figma, including variables, component properties and library management, plus enough fluency in front-end code to work credibly with engineers on the implementation.
  • Practical experience of AI tools such as Claude in design work, for example drafting component documentation, auditing a library for inconsistencies, or scaffolding prototypes, with sound judgement about where their output needs checking.
  • Strong portfolio showing the system you built, how it was governed, and the adoption it achieved, alongside your product design process and final designs.
  • Excellent communication and presentation skills.
  • Experience implementing accessibility standards and best practices, including WCAG 2.2.
  • An understanding of the EdTech landscape, gamification, and emerging technologies such as AI is a plus.

Company Benefits

  • From day 1 - Westfield Health, 29 annual leave days per year plus up to four additional days that may be awarded each year by the company, flexible working policy with opportunities to work from home, Twinkl subscription, access to a financial wellbeing coach and platform
  • After probation - company sick pay and cycle to work scheme
  • Long-term service reward after 2+ years of service - Life insurance, enhanced pension contribution, enhanced maternity pay, enhanced adoption pay and enhanced paternity pay
Principal Product Designer at Twinkl Ltd
Position posted a week ago

Talk directly
to who's hiring

cord intros you to the companies worth joining, from seed to enterprise.

Everything you need to find work

Surface every relevant position, direct message the people hiring and manage all your applications in one place.

Get started

Every position in one place

We index the web for open positions that might be relevant to you and bring them all in one place.

Positions you might like split into tabs based on their type

Direct messaging

No more CV blackholes. Message people hiring directly and see their activity live on cord.

A sent message to a hiring manager
A board of positions in different stages

Application management

Manage all your applications and interviews in one place.

Advanced insights

Know your worth and see how you compare with other applicants.

Visualisation of a profile match score for a position and score comparison with other applicants

Direct.
Transparent.
Human.

On cord you can message people hiring directly, see when they were last active, how responsive they are and access transparent information that you wouldn't be able to find anywhere else.

Photos people at Starling BankPhotos people at Starling BankPhotos people at Starling BankPhotos people at Starling BankPhotos people at Starling Bank
Starling Bank on cord

Starling Bank

Full Stack Engineer (ML Ops)

London, UK
FinTech · Banking · Finance
A better bank for everyone
Active
over 6 months ago
Responds to
0% of requests
Responds in
1h 55m
Requests
7 pending

Skills & Experience

Job roles: Full Stack
Experience level: Mid, Senior
Core skills considered: Java, React, Redux, AWS, JavaScript

Logistics

Base salary: £70K - £110K
Employment type: Permanent
Remote working: Hybrid (up to 2 remote days p/w)
Visa sponsorship: Not available

Job Description

Starling is the UK’s first and leading digital bank on a mission to fix banking! Our vision is fast technology, fair service, and honest values. All at the tap of a phone, all the time.

Starling is the UK’s first and leading digital bank on a mission to fix banking! We built a new kind of bank because we knew technology had the power to help people save, spend and manage their money in a new and transformative way.

We’re a fully licensed UK bank with the culture and spirit of a fast-moving, disruptive tech company. We’re a bank, but better: fairer, easier to use and designed to demystify money for everyone. We employ more than 3,000 people across our London, Southampton, Cardiff and Manchester offices.

Our technologists are at the very heart of Starling and enjoy working in a fast-paced environment that is all about building things, creating new stuff, and disruptive technology that keeps us on the cutting edge of fintech. We operate a flat structure to empower you to make decisions regardless of what your primary responsibilities may be, innovation and collaboration will be at the core of everything you do. Help is never far away in our open culture, you will find support in your team and from across the business, we are in this together!

The way to thrive and shine within Starling is to be a self-driven individual and be able to take full ownership of everything around you: From building things, designing, discovering, to sharing knowledge with your colleagues and making sure all processes are efficient and productive to deliver the best possible results for our customers. Our purpose is underpinned by five Starling values: Listen, Keep It Simple, Do The Right Thing, Own It, and Aim For Greatness.

Hybrid Working

We have a Hybrid approach to working here at Starling - our preference is that you're located within a commutable distance of one of our offices so that we're able to interact and collaborate in person. We don't like to mandate how much you visit the office and work from home, that's to be agreed upon between you and your manager.

Our Data Environment

Our Data teams are excited about the value of data within the business, powers our product decisions to improve things for our customers and enhance effective and agile decision making, regardless of what their primary tech stack may be. Hear from the team in our latest blogs or our case studies with Women in Tech.

We are looking for talented data professionals at all levels to join the team. We value people being engaged and caring about customers, caring about the code they write and the contribution they make to Starling. People with a broad ability to apply themselves to a multitude of problems and challenges, who can work across teams do great things here at Starling, to continue changing banking for good.

Requirements

We have built our entire banking platform in house and mostly in Java. We are looking for people who want to work on building the tooling that is used by our engineers on a daily basis.

We are looking for people who are truly full stack, and are as comfortable polishing their javascript front end as they are debugging the innards of their java applications database interactions, or standing up infrastructure with terraform. We are looking for people who can:

  • Design REST apis.
  • Code backend services, ideally using Java, or another other server side compiled language.
  • Develop modern front ends, ideally using React and Redux.
  • Get their code into the cloud and support it there, ideally on AWS.
  • Believe in clean coding, simple solutions, automated testing and continuous deployment.
  • Like to take ownership of a feature from the original idea through to live.
  • Think (like us) that a small number of empowered developers is the right way to deliver software.

Company Benefits

  • 33 days holiday (including flexible bank holidays)
  • An extra day’s holiday for your birthday
  • 16 hours paid volunteering time a year
  • Part-time and/or flexible hours available for most roles
  • Salary sacrifice, company enhanced pension scheme
  • Life insurance at 4x your salary
  • Hybrid/remote working
  • Private Medical Insurance with VitalityHealth including mental health support and cancer care. Partner benefits include discounts with Waitrose, Mr&Mrs Smith and Peloton
  • Generous family-friendly policies
  • Varied social groups set up and run by our employees
  • Perkbox membership giving access to retail discounts, a wellness platform for physical and mental health, and weekly free and boosted perks
  • Access to initiatives like Cycle to Work, Salary Sacrificed Gym partnerships and Electric Vehicle (EV) leasing

Full details are available on our careers site

Interview Process

Interviewing is a two way process and we want you to have the time and opportunity to get to know us, as much as we are getting to know you! Our interviews are conversational and we want to get the best from you, so come with questions and be curious. In general you can expect the below, following a chat with one of our Talent Team:

  • Stage 1 - 30 mins with one of the team
  • Stage 2 - Take home challenge
  • Stage 3 - 90 mins technical interview with two team members
  • Stage 3 - 45 min final with an executive and a member of the people team
Alex Yeates on cord
Message Alex Yeates at Starling Bank
Typically responds in an hour

What people are saying

2,000+

users joining every week

Oliver on cord

Oliver

Software Engineering Consultant
It's really easy to use, has a solid selection of jobs, and makes it helpful to direct message companies. The platform seems to offer a good range of opportunities while keeping the process simple and convenient.
November, 2025
David on cord

David

Lead Software Engineer
The platform allows you to create a professional CV, making the setup process simple and polished. The internal chat also provides an easy way to directly contact hiring companies, which makes communication much more efficient.
November, 2025
40,000+

open positions

Nicolae on cord

Nicolae

Senior Full Stack Developer
It is a great platform if you are looking for a job. It makes the search process straight forward and gives you access to solid opportunities.
November, 2025
3 million+

messages exchanged so far

Nicolae on cord

Nicolae

Senior Full Stack Developer
It is a great platform if you are looking for a job. It makes the search process straight forward and gives you access to solid opportunities.
November, 2025
81.27%

response rate from companies

Aarambha on cord

Aarambha

Associate Software Engineer
Absolutely amazing idea, the ability to see which recruiters are active makes finding opportunities very quick. There is a form of transparency built into the website that lacks in any other job searching platform.
August, 2025
Adam on cord

Adam

Senior Engineer
cord was great. Clean UI, easy to browse, and the data feature made it a breeze to quickly check whether my profile would match up well with a particular role. The messaging system made it easy to approach companies but also filter out unwanted requests.
August, 2025
4.6

score on Trustpilot

Talk directly to the people that matter

Join the hundred of thousands of people using cord to find work

Get started
 on cord
 on cord
 on cord
 on cord
 on cord
+424 joined last week
Moved to your Not right positions