Lead Product Designer

About Vanguard

More than 50 years ago, John C. Bogle had a vision of starting an investment company that did things differently. A company with no external shareholders, where all profits are reinvested back into the business to lower costs and improve outcomes for clients.

Today, Vanguard is one of the world’s largest investment management companies, serving more than 50 million investors globally. For over 30 years, Vanguard Australia has supported individual investors, financial advisers, and superannuation members in achieving their long-term financial goals.

Our Team & Opportunity

The Growth & Experience team brings together design, product, research, marketing, data and technology capabilities to improve how clients discover, join, invest and grow with Vanguard Australia.

We work across complex and interconnected products, services and journeys, using customer insight, experimentation and data to identify opportunities and create experiences that deliver measurable value for clients and the business.

As Lead Product Designer, you will lead design across strategically important experience areas spanning multiple products, journeys and teams. You will shape product and experience direction, establish a compelling future-state vision and align cross-functional teams around evidence-based customer outcomes.

This is a senior individual-contributor role with impact beyond individual delivery. You will influence investment and prioritisation decisions, resolve complex experience and system challenges, advance design standards and develop the capability of the wider design practice.

You will work closely with Product Managers, Engineers, Researchers, Data and Analytics specialists, Marketing, Legal, Risk and other partners to balance customer needs, business outcomes, technical feasibility and regulatory requirements.

Core Responsibilities

• Lead end-to-end product design across complex, ambiguous and strategically important experience areas, translating business strategy and customer needs into accessible, coherent and scalable experiences across connected products, services and journeys.

• Partner with product, engineering and senior stakeholders to shape product direction, experience vision, intended outcomes, balancing customer value, business priorities, technical feasibility and risk.

• Define and apply qualitative and quantitative research, product analytics and experimentation approaches. Synthesise evidence to identify opportunities, frame hypotheses and influence whether teams proceed, iterate or change direction.

• Lead the communication of design strategy, evidence and solutions to senior stakeholders. Make complex trade-offs understandable, influence decision-making and champion measurable customer and business outcomes across the product lifecycle.

• Build strong relationships across the organisation to align multiple teams, resolve cross-product dependencies and create momentum around a shared experience direction without relying on formal authority.

• Advance design systems, shared standards and governance. Help teams balance reuse with justified innovation and contribute scalable patterns and approaches that improve consistency across products and journeys.

• Partner with product and engineering leaders throughout discovery, delivery and optimisation to resolve platform and sequencing trade-offs, establish quality expectations, support appropriate measurement and validate implementation, accessibility and performance.

• Coach and develop designers through critique, feedback and practical guidance. Set a high standard for craft, systems thinking and evidence-based decision-making while strengthening capability across the wider design practice.

• Contribute to design leadership and emerging practice. Identify appropriate uses of approved AI-enabled tools, establish evaluation criteria and human oversight, and translate valuable learning into responsible and scalable ways of working.

What We’re Looking For

• Demonstrated extensive experience in product design, user experience or a related field, including repeated ownership of complex experience areas spanning multiple products, journeys or teams.

• A portfolio or case-study evidence demonstrating strategic problem framing, systems thinking, customer research, design craft, cross-functional influence, delivery and measurable outcomes.

• Advanced capability across interaction design, information architecture, prototyping and experience strategy, with the judgement to provide direction across content, visual and service-design considerations.

• Strong research and analytical capability, including experience combining qualitative insights, product analytics and other quantitative evidence to inform product decisions.

• Demonstrated ability to influence senior stakeholders, align multidisciplinary teams and constructively challenge decisions that may weaken customer outcomes or long-term product health.

• Experience partnering closely with product and engineering leaders to navigate technical, operational, regulatory and organisational constraints.

Nice to Have

• Experience designing digital investment, superannuation, financial-services or other regulated customer experiences.

• Experience establishing or improving design systems, contribution models, shared patterns or design-quality practices.

• Experience defining customer-experience measures or applying experimentation and product analytics to evaluate design outcomes.

Inclusion Statement

Vanguard's continued commitment to diversity and inclusion is firmly rooted in our culture. Every decision we make to best serve our clients, crew (internally employees are referred to as crew), and communities is guided by one simple statement: “Do the right thing.”

We believe that a critical aspect of doing the right thing requires building diverse, inclusive, and highly effective teams of individuals who are as unique as the clients they serve. We empower our crew to contribute their distinct strengths to achieving Vanguard's core purpose through our values.

When all crew members feel valued and included, our ability to collaborate and innovate is amplified, and we are united in delivering on Vanguard's core purpose.

Our core purpose: To take a stand for all investors, to treat them fairly, and to give them the best chance for investment success.