Senior / Principal Product Designer

Job Description

Overview

Nuclear EMEA Digital Products and Technology is building a shared design system across a growing portfolio of digital products, including web and XR experiences.

As a Senior / Principal Product Designer, you’ll play a key role in shaping and establishing this design system, taking it from discovery through to adoption across our products. You’ll help create clear, reusable patterns that enable product designers to work efficiently and consistently, while giving them the flexibility to solve individual product needs.

You’ll work closely with product designers, product managers, engineering leads and developers, bringing together design thinking, technical understanding and user insight to create experiences that are consistent, accessible and practical to implement.

Your initial focus will be supporting the merger of two applications, providing an opportunity to put the design system into practice and establish foundations that can scale across the wider portfolio.

Your Role

As a Senior / Principal Product Designer, you’ll provide design leadership while remaining close to the work, helping the team turn product strategy and user needs into clear and effective experiences.

You’ll:

• Shape, build and maintain the portfolio design system in Figma, including components, variables, usage guidance and accessibility considerations.

• Establish practical ways for product designers to contribute to, adopt and evolve the design system, creating consistency while supporting individual product needs.

• Define and maintain clear naming standards across Figma variables and frontend CSS, reviewing system-level changes to keep the overall design language coherent as products and teams grow.

• Partner with product designers and support the migration and adoption of the design system across products, beginning with the merged-product pilot and validating token and component implementation.

• Collaborate closely with product managers, engineering leads and developers to translate product strategy into clear, testable and implementable experiences.

• Lead discovery for priority initiatives, bringing together problem framing, journey mapping and design hypotheses to create a shared understanding of user needs and opportunities.

• Plan and facilitate usability testing, using insights and feedback to continually improve designs and user experiences.

• Champion inclusive and accessible design, ensuring components and patterns are designed to meet WCAG 2.2 AA requirements.

About You

You’ll bring a combination of product design expertise, systems thinking and collaborative leadership, with the ability to see both the bigger picture and the detail required to create effective digital experiences.

We’re looking for someone who:

• Has strong product or UI/UX design experience for web-based applications, with the confidence to take design challenges from discovery through to implementation.

• Has experience creating, developing and scaling design systems and component libraries, with an understanding of how to encourage their adoption across products and teams.

• Is comfortable working in Figma, including components, variables, libraries and design system documentation.

• Enjoys understanding users and has experience planning and running usability testing, turning insights into meaningful design improvements.

• Brings strong UX capability across user flows, information architecture and interaction design.

• Has practical knowledge of HTML and CSS, enabling effective collaboration between design and engineering. Experience with a specific frontend framework isn’t required.

• Builds collaborative relationships with product and engineering teams and can communicate design thinking, decisions and trade-offs clearly.

• Has a thoughtful approach to accessibility and inclusive design, considering these needs throughout the design process rather than as a final step.
• Experience with XR or spatial computing design, Microsoft HoloLens Mixed Reality Design Guidelines or similar spatial design principles would be valuable. Exposure to AI-assisted design workflows would also be beneficial.

As part of the application process, we’d like to see a portfolio with a case study that demonstrates your involvement in the conceptualisation, development and implementation of a design system. We’re particularly interested in understanding how you think, collaborate and approach design challenges, as well as the outcomes you’ve helped create.

Rewards & benefits

Explore the rewards and benefits that help you thrive – at every stage of your life and your career. Enjoy competitive salaries, employee rewards and a brilliant range of benefits you can tailor to suit your own health, wellbeing, financial and lifestyle choices. Make the most of a myriad of opportunities for training and professional development to grow your skills and expertise. And combine our hybrid working culture and flexible holiday allowances to balance a great job and fulfilling personal life. Rewards and benefits – Careers at AtkinsRéalis

About AtkinsRéalis

We're AtkinsRéalis, a world-class engineering services and nuclear organization. We connect people, data and technology to transform the world's infrastructure and energy systems. Together, with our industry partners and clients, and our global team of consultants, designers, engineers and project managers, we can change the world. We're committed to leading our clients across our various end markets to engineer a better future for our planet and its people.

Find out more.

Additional information

Security clearance

This role may require security clearance and offers of employment will be dependent on obtaining the relevant level of clearance. If this is necessary, it will be discussed with you at interview. The vetting process is delivered by United Kingdom Security Vetting (UKSV) and may require candidates to provide proof of residency in the UK of 5 years or longer. If applying to this role please do not make reference to (in conversation) or include in your application or CV, details of any current or previously held security clearance.

We are committed to creating a culture where everyone feels that they belong - a place where we can all be ourselves, thrive and develop to be the best we can be. So, we offer a range of family friendly, inclusive employment policies, flexible working arrangements and employee resource groups to support all employees. As an Equal Opportunities Employer, we value applications from all backgrounds, cultures and ability. As a Disability Confident Leader, we are committed to offering an interview to all applicants who have a disability and meet the essential criteria. If you would like to be considered under this commitment, please let us know at the application stage.

Worker Type

Employee

Job Type

Regular

At AtkinsRéalis, we seek to hire individuals with diverse characteristics, backgrounds and perspectives. We strongly believe that world-class talent makes no distinctions based on gender, ethnic or national origin, sexual identity and orientation, age, religion or disability, but enriches itself through these differences.