UX Lead

“Ocado Technology, powering the future of retail through sustained disruptive technology innovation...”

Ocado Technology is putting the world’s retailers online using the cloud, robotics, AI, and IoT. We develop the innovative software and systems that power Ocado.com, the world’s largest online-only grocery retailer as well as the global ‘Ocado Smart Platform’. With everything from websites to fully autonomous warehouses that we design in-house, our world-class talent constantly moves the goal posts of what is possible to achieve through sustained technological disruption.

We champion a value-led culture to get our teams working at their very best and to help create a collaborative working environment that our people love. Core values of Trust, Autonomy, Craftsmanship, Collaboration and Learn Fast help drive our innovative culture. 

Based in Hatfield (16 min train commute from London King’s Cross), we also have offices in Krakow, Wroclaw, Barcelona & Sofia. With teams all over Europe.

What does the team do:

This role leads a team of UX Researchers that underpin Ocado Technology's user focus, merging users and business needs to design great products and solutions for our clients. In this role, the UX Lead will act as a bridge between the end-user and technical / business worlds, working with Principal UX, Principal and Senior Product Managers, and Engineering Development Managers.  

You’ll share accountability for key UX Research decisions, ensure teams achieve UX commitments against the delivery plan, and provide constructive challenges to focus effort on the missions that are important for the Ecommerce side of our platform. 

What would I be doing?

You will focus on Product Alignment & Collaboration

• Work closely with Product and Engineering teams, ensure team UX deliverables meet user & product stream missions / objectives.
• Ensure teams works collaboratively with Product teams to then generate relevant customer insights & clear UX recommendations aligned to stream goals.
• Make sure teams are delivery focussed and UX effort is balanced against product deadlines.
• Be responsible for improving the tracking and monitoring of system usability to drive continuous and commercially sound improvements.

You will Research & understand user needs

• Work with Principal Product Manager’s (PPM) to ensure UX-Research pipeline supports Ecommerce priorities.
• Have oversight of, and with Product Mgt. peers provide guidance/agreement to research screening criteria & regular research benchmarking,
• Have oversight of qualitative insights of how users interact with the platform, focused on their stream, including interactions with other interfaces.
• Lead UX Researchers to identify gaps in understanding / opportunities where insights can help drive decisions forwards.
• Drive best practice usage of research tools and mentors UX team to maximise efficiency and quality.

Service Design

• Lead UX Researchers and works with Product teams to build awareness of Ecommerce’s system actors/users and feed into broader end to end service design blueprints.
• Ensure UX teams have the relevant assets to provide a clear rationale for improving the end-to-end UX, eg customer journey flows and empathy maps.
• Together with Product teams, ensure UX team deliverables are aligned to overall business goals and KPIs.
• Highlight and recommend business opportunities from improving the actors' experience and touch points.
• Share outputs with other streams so all teams are aware of the impact of their work on the overall service and the different actors.

You will present Design Thinking

• Make recommendations to improve product effectiveness by applying design thinking and user centricity, working closely with Product teams to gain agreement.
• Mentor/coach broader teams about design thinking & inclusive design.
• Foster a culture where UX team is encouraged to consider multiple solutions and use a blend of qualitative and quantitative insights to rapidly iterate and optimise.
• Work with UX Design Leads & Product Managers to define a Minimum Viable Product that can then be optimised with inputs from the ongoing monitoring of insights and KPIs.

Interaction Design, Information Architecture & Visual Design

• Mentor and support other researchers around best practice techniques to test/validate the effectiveness of Information Architecture, Visual Design variants and translate user needs/problems into actionable insights for teams.
• Share knowledge and insights with in-stream teams to increase awareness of interactions holistically across multiple devices and technologies (e.g. apps, web (HTML, progressive web apps) and various capabilities and limitations.
• Identify inconsistencies, understand user impacts and share with the team to help improve end designs.

You will Lead & Influence

• Ensure UX individuals and teams have actionable, measurable goals, aligned with product strategy and vision
• Help build a high performing team of UX people, supporting individuals to thrive and the organisation to succeed (e.g. coaching, mentoring, inspiring, feedback, connecting people to experts in other fields)
• Will be seen as an example of our Behaviours, inspiring others to live the Ocado Technology Behaviours
• Help to create a strong sense of purpose and mission for the UX area and takes ownership for their outcomes
• Collaborate with Product and Engineering teams and feeds into the prioritisation process to ensure UX teams are aligned and contributing to broader team goals

We'd be interested to hear from you if... 

• You actively demonstrate Ocado Technology behaviours in everything you do.
• You contribute to being part of a high performing UX teams when working alongside product & engineering.
• You are flexible and adapt to changing business needs and can prioritise work effectively.
• You are self managing, organised and able to plan, track and deliver your work on time and to a high standard.
• You have a bias for action, collaboration and optimism so that people will always want to have you in their teams.
• You are comfortable with processing and visualising data to help create insight, solve problems and inform recommendations.
• You are logical and take a structured approach even when there is ambiguity.
• You have strong written and verbal communication skills with a good emphasis on careful listening.
• You strive for great in every aspect of your work.
• You share knowledge with others internally.

Essential toolkit... 

• Relevant industry experience or technology business.
• Experienced working with mixed teams / functional areas, including Product Management, Engineering, Data Science.
• Proven ability to plan, manage, track and deliver on commitments.
• Prioritising UX work in a fast-paced environment.
• Demonstrable experience collaborating with, and influencing product and technology teams.
• Experience capturing business needs and user requirements to support product realisation.
• Experience working with Product/UX components that are strategically significant, highly complex, or feature a new area of technology, requiring expansion of the platform.
• Demonstrated usage of deep subject matter expertise & experience working across functional areas balancing the needs of many different product areas.
• Leadership and people management experiences welcomed.

What we offer you

Our employee benefits are designed for you, we care about people and we’ve ensured we have a wealth of benefits that focus on your well-being. Within our flexible environment we can offer technically stretching work, a competitive salary and share schemes. Benefits include pension scheme, train season ticket loan (interest-free), free shuttle bus from Hatfield train station and of course, healthy Ocado retail staff discounts. 

We also have regular divisional socials, sports clubs not to mention the Ocado Technology Academy for a packed schedule of courses, conferences and events such as discussion sessions, conference briefs and external guest speakers. If you think you have what it takes to make a difference, please submit your application below.

Due to the energising nature of Ocado's business, vacancy close dates, when stated, are indicative and may be subject to change so please apply as soon as possible to avoid disappointment. 

Please note: If you have applied and been rejected for this role in the last 6 months, or applied and been rejected for a role with a similar skill set, we will not re-evaluate you for this position. After 6 months, we will treat your application as a new one. 

Be bold, be unique, be brilliant, be you. We are looking for individuality and we value diversity above gender, sexual orientation, race, nationality, ethnicity, religion, age, disability or union participation. We are an equal opportunities employer and we are committed to treating all applicants and employees fairly and equally.