Principal Product Designer (12 month FTC - Mat Cover)

Principal Product Designer

We are looking for a Principal Product Designer to join ClearScore’s Upstream mission on a maternity cover. This role is suited to a senior designer who thrives owning complex problem spaces, leading discovery, setting direction and shaping experiences that help users understand, improve, and act on their Credit Health.

This role requires someone comfortable influencing at the C-suite level and operating with a high degree of autonomy. You’ll drive the design direction using research, data, and compelling storytelling to align stakeholders around customer problems, service opportunities, and design-led decisions.

Alongside owning product initiatives, you’ll step in as interim Service Design Lead. You’ll be responsible for strengthening service thinking across the Design community and building momentum around a shared understanding of the end-to-end customer journey.

This role is based out of Edinburgh or London with a hybrid working model, requiring 2 days a week in the office. If London based there will need a need for frequent travel to Edinburgh to collaborate with the team.

What you will be doing:

• Own one cycle of our annual product evolution from deep discovery, prototyping through to handover with our Platform partners
• Create clarity from ambiguity, defining problem spaces, success measures, and design principles within your area
• Deliver high-impact Credit Health initiatives that solve users needs and align to business strategy
• Act as interim Service Design Lead, championing service thinking and embedding it into how teams frame problems and deliver solutions
• Present your direction regularly to the CEO and other C-level executives, presenting structured thinking and narrative, helping the organisation make confident, data-led trade-offs
• Adapt to new insight and direction, utilising weekly check-ins with leadership, working dynamically in a fast-paced environment
• Invent new interaction patterns, and maintain complex information architecture diagrams and user flows
• Partner day-to-day with Product, Engineers, Researchers, Data Analysts and Content Designers to ship cohesive, high-quality solutions
• Provide design leadership within the squad, raising quality through critique, mentoring, and example
• Shape how AI is used within the product, identifying responsible, user-centred applications that enhance understanding and decision-making
• Design for scale across markets, ensuring solutions are adaptable across the UK and international contexts while respecting regulatory and cultural nuances
• Travel to our international markets (South Africa, Canada, Australia) to gain context for scaling experiences across markets

Skills we'd love you to have

• Strong systems thinking, being able to connect product experiences to operational, commercial, and technical realities
• Comfort navigating ambiguity and leading others through uncertainty with clarity and confidence
• Proven ability to influence C-suit stakeholders through insight, structured reasoning, and persuasive storytelling
• Extensive research proficiency, planning and running multi-method research, translating learnings in artefacts that convey insight
• Strong service design capabilities, with experience mapping and evolving complex end-to-end journeys
• Rapid prototyping skills — able to use low-to-high fidelity prototypes to validate hypotheses quickly, leverage AI tools whilst maintaining high quality
• Some experience working in regulated, data-heavy, or technically complex domains (e.g. fintech, credit, financial services, open banking or similarly constrained spaces)

Why ClearScore?

ClearScore is the UK's #1 credit score and report app. We are also present in South Africa, Australia and Canada, with more than 20 million users globally and growing fast. Someone joins ClearScore every 20 seconds. We have established relationships with over 50 of the main lenders in the U.K., and have been a trusted tool for customers to manage their credit and make better financial decisions.

Since October 2016 we have helped 1.8 million users take out a new credit card or loan. We are user-centric at our core and we believe in leveraging technology to enable positive financial choices. We are design-led and data-driven and we embed these behaviours in everything we do.

Our company culture is a fundamental part of all we have achieved. We believe in hiring smart, driven, passionate and diverse people who are keen on having a real impact in our organisation. We trust you to manage your own time so we offer flexible work and no fixed desk hours. We don't micromanage and we believe in measuring outcomes rather than effort. We have an inclusive culture where all, regardless of seniority, are encouraged to contribute with their ideas, look after their wellbeing and actively seek opportunities for career growth.

If you feel like this could be the place for you, apply and our Talent team will be happy to share more.

Benefits:

• 25 paid holidays and a “duvet day” on your birthday
• Hybrid Work Environment
• Private health and dental cover - including mental health support through Bupa 
• GP office visits
• Life assurance scheme
• Up to 6% matched pension
• Regular Lunch and Learns with guest speakers
• Dog-friendly office
• Daily breakfast and free snacks
• Access to discounts via Cobens Extras 
• Free sports and social clubs
• Continued investment into learning and development 
• Leadership-led training
• In-house psychotherapist
• Financial coach to help you plan and achieve your goals
• No clock-watching culture
• Generous maternity and paternity plans
• Culture and inclusion representatives
• Transparent pay structure and a career growth plan

Equal Opportunities

ClearScore is committed to providing equal employment opportunities to all qualified individuals. As an equal opportunity employer, we are able to make reasonable adjustments to accommodate individuals with disabilities during the recruitment and selection process. If you require accommodation, please inform us in advance, and we will work with you to meet your needs.

• Levels 1-5: Minimum 2 days per week in-office
• Level 6 and above: Minimum 3 days per week in-office

• Flexibility to manage your work and life
• Dedicated in-office days for team building and collaborative projects
•  Office facilities (with plants!) designed for productive interactions
• Clear expectations and support for maintaining our hybrid schedule