Senior UX/UI Designer

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Senior UX/UI Designer

Department: Engineering

Employment Type: Permanent - Full Time

Location: Bristol, UK

Compensation: GBP 40,000 - GBP 50,000 / year

Description

We're building the UK's next generation engineering powerhouse, providing critical technology that strengthens national security and resilience.
At Rowden, we design and integrate advanced systems that sense, connect, and protect data in challenging environments where quick decisions are vital. Our solutions use intelligent automation to enhance speed and efficiency and are built to be reliable and straightforward for critical operations in remote or high-pressure settings.

Headquartered in Bristol (UK), we combine modern engineering methods with cutting-edge commercial technology to create adaptable, mission-critical systems. We focus on solving the tough challenges that others overlook, ensuring our customers can operate effectively in an ever-changing world.

About the role
We're looking for a talented Senior UX/UI Designer to join a growing team responsible for shaping the user experience of software used in critical, real-world contexts. This role offers the opportunity to help establish a design system from the ground up, setting foundations that will scale across multiple products and programmes. Working closely with designers, engineers, and product partners, you will contribute to both strategic direction and hands-on delivery, ensuring design quality, consistency, and usability for unique products that serve unique user needs.

As a Senior UX/UI Designer, you will support teams delivering mission-critical tools where clarity, reliability, and usability truly matter. Projects are technically complex and user needs are often nuanced, but the impact is tangible and rewarding. The systems you help design will directly support people doing important work. This is a role for someone who values thoughtful design, collaboration, and building things that genuinely improve how people operate in high-stakes situations.

Candidates must be eligible for SC Clearance

Key areas of responsibility

• Lead the design of end-to-end user experiences for secure, classified, and mission-critical applications and systems.
• Frame and solve complex problems by combining user research, operational insight, domain knowledge, and stakeholder input.
• Plan and conduct qualitative and quantitative research within constrained or classified environments, adapting methods to limited user access and sensitive data.
• Synthesise research into clear, actionable insights that inform design direction and product strategy, and advocate for evidence-based decisions.
• Produce and manage high-quality design outputs, including user journeys, personas, task flows, wireframes, prototypes, and polished UI, ready for implementation.
• Ensure experiences are consistent, accessible, inclusive, and scalable through effective use and evolution of design systems, adhering to relevant accessibility regulations (e.g. EAA).
• Work closely with product managers, engineers, and stakeholders to balance usability, security, performance, and compliance throughout delivery.
• Communicate design rationale clearly, facilitate workshops and reviews, and mentor designers while contributing to shared standards and best practices.

Key skills, experience and behaviours

What you'll bring

• Significant experience as a UX Designer, Product Designer, or UX/UI Designer delivering complex digital products.
• A proven track record of operating within a senior role.
• Demonstrated ownership of end-to-end design work, from discovery through implementation.
• Strong portfolio showing problem framing, interaction design, UI craft, and research-informed decision making.
• Experience conducting or supporting user research and usability evaluation in constrained or complex environments.
• Solid understanding of human-centred design principles, usability, and accessibility standards.
• Experience working with or contributing to design systems.
• Proficiency with modern design and prototyping tools (e.g. Figma or equivalent).
• Ability to work effectively in secure, regulated, or restricted environments.

Highly Desirable experience

• Experience conducting and analysing user research via a range of industry recognised methods.
• Experience designing for defence, aerospace, government, critical infrastructure, or similarly regulated domains.
• Experience working on long-lifecycle systems with complex technical dependencies.
• Ability to influence product and design decisions in high-stakes, ambiguity-heavy contexts.
• Experience mentoring designers or leading design efforts across multiple teams.

Working at Rowden

We are committed to building a flexible, inclusive, and enabling company. Our aim is to create a diverse team of talented people with unique skills, experience, and backgrounds, so please apply and come as you are!

We also recognise the importance of flexible working and support this wherever we can. We typically operate a flexible, hybrid-working model, with an average 3 days in the office each week (dependent on the role). We welcome the opportunity to discuss flexibility, part-time working requirements and/or workplace adjustments with all our applicants.

Rowden is a Disability Confident Committed company, and we actively encourage people with disabilities and health conditions to apply for our roles. Please let us know your requirements early on so that we can make sure you have everything you need up front to help make the recruitment process and experience as easy as possible.

Finally, if you feel that you don't meet all the criteria included above but have transferable skills and relevant experience, we'd still love to hear from you!