About Piclo

The energy industry has entered a new era. Supply and demand are decentralising fast; energy companies are starting to embrace renewables and looking for new ways to reduce costs, increase efficiency and build a smarter grid. That’s where Piclo comes in. 

Piclo is on a mission to make our energy system smart, flexible and more sustainable.

Our flagship product, Piclo Flex, is an industry first. It’s the leading B2B online marketplace for flexible energy procurement in the UK, and a frontrunner in a sector that’s poised to transform smart energy technology by enabling renewables, batteries and electric vehicles to help balance the grid, both in the UK and internationally.

The role

We’re hiring a UX Designer to support a team focused on new functionality for our marketplace.  You’ll be joining our friendly team at an exciting time - we recently secured a round of funding for the next stage in our business, so we’re busy preparing for a period of team and product growth. 

Your key objective is to work within your cross functional team to provide user research, user testing and interface designs for the new functionality we’re building. To start with, you’ll be supported by our CPO, Alice Tyler (once a UX designer herself) but working within your team to plan your time and workload and using the wider design team as a network for design crits and feedback. Responsibilities for this role include but are not limited to:

• User research - you’ll be expected to be able to plan and conduct user research as and when you and the team deem necessary. You’ll need to be confident testing with users via multiple methods including via video conferencing. We encourage team members to view sessions so you’ll need to be comfortable with being watched by your teammates.
• Research analysis and communication - you’ll need to be confident and comfortable analysing your findings and presenting them to both your team and the wider business when necessary. You’ll also need to incorporate insights into design decisions to fulfill user and business needs. Our teams work in very close collaboration and so the Product Managers and Developers on your team are part of your design team on a day to day basis.
• Prototyping - you’ll be expected to design and build prototypes (we use Figma) that can be tested on users and provide key feedback on your ideas. You’ll be supported here by our visuals designers with a pre-built component library so you wouldn’t be expected to design pixel perfect UI elements. Where ideas are related to data, it may be necessary for you to prototype in data tables (using Google Sheets or Excel).
• UI design - output form the above processes would then be expected to be designed into production ready interfaces. You’ll be able to work in conjunction with other members so the design team can help with elements you’re less familiar with in UI design - designing at Piclo is a team sport.
• Product testing - all members of a production team take part in the testing of their work, and you’ll also be expected to take part in QA testing alongside the PM, Devs and QA. This responsibility may also extend to providing Customer Support for early features your team are still rolling out / testing.
• Design reviews: There is a growing design team in Piclo and we are working together to establish how we work together. We expect every designer to participate in Design Reviews, giving and appropriately receiving feedback.

About you

Our ideal candidate meets many - but not necessarily all - of the below criteria:

• You have 6+ years of relevant professional experience or have worked on 2-3 digital products in relevant roles.
• You’re comfortable with technical products and confident when integrating and interpreting data in core functions of your products. 
• You are fluent with different design and research processes and can adapt your process to the task at hand.
• You are familiar with digital design software tools like Figma and other useful online services like Miro and Airtable.
• You’re driven by providing the best possible user experience and work hard to make sure that the best experience can be given for the minimum amount of development time.
• You are a logical thinker who enjoys the challenge of deciphering user inputs into product outputs, no matter how complicated that can be.
• You’re empathetic and feel very comfortable asking questions of users and working with teammates to design the best solutions.
• You are an excellent communicator (both verbally and written) who can build relationships with tech and non-tech teammates and customers. 
• You’re fluent in English, even if it’s not your first language.

Also desirable:

• Experience in small start-up environments.
• Experience working in a B2B context.
• Understanding of the energy industry, from the perspective of suppliers, the regulator or the networks.
• You are motivated by Piclo’s mission to make our energy system smart, flexible and clean. 
• You are naturally empathic, and are always mindful of the humans who use and benefit from your work. 

What we can offer

• As you’d expect, a competitive salary, with share options comes as standard.
• 35 hour week - with flexible working hours.
• Life Assurance at 3x salary.
• Private Healthcare.
• Whatever tools you need to get your job done to the best of your abilities.  We’ve put a lot of care into making sure your working from home setup is optimised, including a £100 monthly expense budget for extra kit you might need.
• A modest annual allowance of £500 to spend on professional development, additional equipment, or your mental and physical wellbeing.
• The opportunity to help shape the role to find the best balance between what we need as a business and your career progression plans.
• We run fortnightly sprint meets for the whole team so everyone is aware and engaged with our progress.
• We stop early every other Friday for Show and Tell, where the tech team demo new features over [now remote] snacks and drinks.
• We also hold weekly virtual coffee mornings and host virtual film clubs and even have a baking slack channel.

How to apply 

To apply, email jobs@piclo.energy with ‘UX Designer’ in the subject line (or use the form below) and tell us about your skills and experience, and why you think you’d be a good fit for this role. 

Please attach a copy of your portfolio, or provide a URL so we can take a look, as well as any other materials you think are relevant, such as a covering letter or CV. We will disregard applications submitted without a portfolio. 

We’ll aim to review applications in batches on a weekly basis, and will respond to every application we receive, regardless of outcome. 

Interview process

All being well, we generally conduct interviews in three stages, lasting approximately 2-3 weeks depending on everyone’s calendars.

1. We’ll invite you for a short video call to discuss your experience and what you’re looking for in your next role. We aim to respond to applicants within 2-3 working days at most. 
2. Next up, some applicants will be invited to complete a challenge, which the team will review.
3. Successful applicants will then be invited to a more in-depth interview to meet additional members of the team and the CPO, and to pair on a live testing exercise, as well as providing an opportunity for some Q&A about the role, about Piclo, and vice versa. 

We see diversity as a strength. We welcome people of different backgrounds, experiences, abilities and perspectives but can only accept people who have the right to live and work in the UK. We are an equal opportunity employer as well as being a pleasant and supportive place to work.

A small note about COVID-19 and remote working

At Piclo, we decided to go fully remote during the recent lockdown, and have let go the lease on our cosy Shoreditch office. That means our team is currently working from home on an indefinite basis, however we plan to secure even better premises in 2021, also in the Shoreditch area. We’re proud that we’ve not had to furlough any members of the team during the pandemic, and have worked hard to ensure every member of the team has the equipment they need to work comfortably and effectively in a remote setting.