Discipline Head, Interaction and Service Design

• Salary: £72,000-£99,000 with a London-weighting of £80,000-£110,000
• Office hubs: Bristol, London, Manchester and Swansea
• Hybrid working
• SFIA Level 6

Support in applying

If you need this job description in another format, or other support in applying, please email talent@madetech.com.

We believe we can use tech to make public services better. We also believe this can happen best when our own team represents the society that actually uses the services we work on. We’re collectively continuing to grow a culture that is happy, healthy, safe and inspiring for people of all backgrounds and experiences, so we encourage people from underrepresented groups to apply for roles with us.

When you apply, we’ll put you in touch with a talent partner who can help with any needs or adjustments we may need to make to help with your application. This includes alternative formats for documents, the time allotted for interviews and any other needs. We also welcome any feedback on how we can improve the experience for future candidates.

About Made Tech

Made Tech helps the public sector use technology to make a positive impact on society – fast. As a purpose-driven organisation, we believe the outcomes we create are more important than the technology we deliver. That means putting people at the heart of how we design, build and deliver public services.

Our user-centred practice (content designers, interaction and service designers, user researchers, product managers and business analysts) is central to that mission. We work alongside colleagues in delivery, engineering, data, transformation and managed services to deliver transformative public services, powered by human-centred technology, that lead to better outcomes for everyone.

Made Tech has grown quickly, and has bold ambitions for the future. We know that growth and change can be unsettling as well as exciting, so we are looking for people who enjoy this challenge and want to help others thrive too.

About the role

This is a new role, to support and develop our growing team of 18+ service and interaction designers. You’ll report directly to the Head of User-Centred Practice, working alongside three other Discipline Heads to define and develop best practice and flourishing professional communities in:

• Product Management and Business Analysis
• Interaction and Service Design
• User Research
• Content Design

As a new role this is an exciting opportunity to define the overall strategic approach to the design at Made Tech and collaborate with senior leadership colleagues to integrate design with multidisciplinary agile delivery. You’ll set standards, define propositions and playbooks, and represent design both internally and externally. We have strong foundations in place with an already established community of talented service and interaction designers. You will help take us to the next level in practice and delivery.

You will:

• Develop and grow the discipline of service and interaction design, and broader user-centred practice, in line with business needs, collaborating with Made Tech’s wider leadership team to ensure our design practice and delivery work align with our growth goals
• Make Made Tech a place where designers can flourish and grow, through a thriving and supportive community of practice, and supportive, safe and trusted team environments that nurture talent and get the best out of our people.
• Hire and line manage interaction and service designers, develop their skills, and help them progress in their careers.
• Define what ‘good’ looks like for our already talented team of service and interaction designers, enabling them and holding them accountable for producing high-quality outputs and deliverables. Embed that in career pathways, learning and development opportunities, methods and tools, and delivery standards
• Develop our capabilities, propositions and playbooks to create a uniquely Made Tech way of embedding design and product thinking into all that we do
• Coach and support designers and other professionals within Made Tech on design best-practice, agile and lean methodologies, and high-performance teams.
• Steer our teams towards successful delivery of user-centred technology for our clients, enabling them and holding them accountable for producing high quality outputs and deliverables that create value for clients and society.
• Work closely with our clients’ senior leadership to inform strategy and ensure that we’re delivering high-quality work aligned to our customer’s technology vision
• You will play a pivotal role in identifying/qualifying new opportunities, responding to client needs and winning work. You must be able to shape compelling strategy, proposals, statements of work and roadmaps, and influence adoption of those proposals among senior management of public sector organisations.
• Maintain a broad technical knowledge of user-centred design best practice, including emerging practices and methods.
• Maintain and grow your professional network as a design leader. Contribute to thought leadership, content and events leveraging your track record and expertise as a design professional.

Life at Made Tech

We’re committed to building a happy, inclusive and diverse workforce. You can get a sense of what it’s like working here from our blog, where we talk about mental health, communities of practice and neurodiversity as well as our client work and best practice.

Like many organisations, we use Slack to chat to each other. The Slack groups that have formed give an idea of the diversity within Made Tech. If you’d like to speak to someone from one of these groups about their experience as an employee, let your recruitment agent or Made Tech Talent Partner know.

The groups are:

• antiracist-activists
• disability
• lgbtqiaplus-allies-and-activists
• neurodiversity
• parents-carers
• women-in-tech

Benefits

We are always listening to our growing teams and evolving the benefits available to our people. As we scale, as do our benefits and we are scaling quickly. We've recently introduced a flexible benefit platform which includes a Smart Tech scheme, Cycle to work scheme, and an individual benefits allowance which you can invest in a Health care cash plan or Pension plan. We’re also big on connection and have an optional social and wellbeing calendar of events for all employees to join should they choose to.

Here are some of our most popular benefits listed below:

✈️ 30 days Holiday - we offer 30 days of paid annual leave

🕰️ Flexible Working Hours - we are flexible with what hours you work

👶 Flexible Parental Leave - we offer flexible parental leave options

👩‍💻 Remote Working - we offer part time remote working for all our staff

🤗 Paid counselling - we offer paid counselling as well as financial and legal advice