User Experience Product Design, Specialist

Job Overview: User Experience Product Designer (Strategy-Focused)

We are seeking a User Experience Product Designer with a strong strategic mindset and a passion for crafting intuitive, client-centered digital experiences. This role is ideal for a designer who thrives at the intersection of design thinking and product strategy, and who can translate complex financial planning concepts into elegant, user-friendly solutions.

As part of our UX team, you will play a pivotal role in shaping the financial goals experience, helping clients plan, track, and achieve their financial aspirations. You’ll collaborate closely with product managers, engineers, data analysts, and researchers to ensure that every design decision aligns with both user needs and business objectives.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead design efforts for financial planning tools, with an immediate focus on financial goals experiences.

• Translate strategic business objectives into actionable design solutions that resonate with users.

• Conduct and synthesize user research to inform design direction and validate concepts.

• Develop wireframes, prototypes, and high-fidelity mockups that support iterative testing and refinement.

• Collaborate cross-functionally to ensure design feasibility, consistency, and alignment with product strategy.

• Apply prioritization frameworks to balance feasibility, viability, and desirability in design decisions.

• Champion a client-first mindset, ensuring that all design work reflects empathy, clarity, and usability.

Ideal Candidate Profile

• Proven experience in UX design with a strategic focus, preferably in financial services or complex domains.

• Strong conceptual and systems thinking, with the ability to connect user insights to long-term product vision.

• Expertise in design thinking, lean methodologies, and user-centered design practices.

• Comfortable leading workshops, presenting to stakeholders, and driving cross-functional alignment.

• Skilled in using qualitative and quantitative data to inform design decisions.

• Familiarity with financial planning concepts and client journey mapping is a plus.

Details

Core Responsibilities

1. Designs complex user flows, wireframes, prototypes, and UI elements to deliver a seamless user experience across mobile and web platforms, while utilizing established brand standards.

2. Develops user experience interface architecture strategies to support and improve the user interface. Leads cross-family initiatives to meet business and marketing goals.

3. Partners with cross-departmental teams and business leaders to prioritize UX efforts that align with business objectives. Helps translate user needs and feedback into actionable product features. Coordinates and delivers design, prototype, and documentation to improve the user experience.

4. Collaborates with research and data analytics teams to incorporate quantitative and qualitative data into the design process, ensuring decisions are informed by user insights. Leverage experimentation to validate hypothesis across the feasibility, desirability, and viability spectrum.

5. Analyzes market trends, competitive analysis, OKRs, and user behavior to develop UX strategies that inform design decisions and product direction.

6. Advocates for user-centered design solutions that evolve with changing business goals and user needs, while keeping a close eye on emerging technologies and design trends.

7. Ensures our UX practices align with industry standards and yield minimum waste. Trains and mentors junior staff in best practices of user experience design. Provides guidance, training, and motivation.

8. Develops and leverages a professional network across the enterprise to foster collaboration within the department to support department-wide initiatives, and to advocate for UX having a voice in the decision-making and planning process

9. Participates in special projects and performs other duties as assigned.

Qualifications

• Minimum five years of industry/field experience in user experience design. Product design experience preferred.

• Undergraduate degree or equivalent combination of training and experience in a creative or technical field.

Special Factors

Sponsorship

About Vanguard

At Vanguard, we don't just have a mission—we're on a mission.

To work for the long-term financial wellbeing of our clients. To lead through product and services that transform our clients' lives. To learn and develop our skills as individuals and as a team. From Malvern to Melbourne, our mission drives us forward and inspires us to be our best.

How We Work

Vanguard has implemented a hybrid working model for the majority of our crew members, designed to capture the benefits of enhanced flexibility while enabling in-person learning, collaboration, and connection. We believe our mission-driven and highly collaborative culture is a critical enabler to support long-term client outcomes and enrich the employee experience.