UX Design Manager

We have an open role for a User Experience leader to grow and develop our exceptional team of designers, and work hands on to design simple, accessible and progressive products for small businesses. You'll be part of building the tools that over 100 000 small businesses use to serve their customers. 

This position requires an innovative designer, a clever problem solver, a helpful mentor, a team player, and a skilled communicator — all rolled into one. Hands-on design skills, a thorough understanding of web and mobile applications, and excellent leadership skills are all essential for this role. Ideally this position is filled by an individual who is either from South Africa, or who has lived in South Africa for an extended period of time, to enable their ability to understand the context and empathise with our customers.

We have a passion for financial inclusion and supporting small businesses. Our process starts with user insights, and then we iteratively design and build solutions. Teams of product managers, engineers, designers, data analysts, researchers - whoever we need to solve the challenge - own a customer problem and collaborate from the start of the journey to the end. Our approach is agile, we’re always learning and improving how we work.


ROLE | WHAT YOU WILL BE DOING?

Key Responsibilities:

• Manage designers, and lead the creation of the processes to grow the design team through hiring, training and internships.
• Partner with our Lead Product Designer to establish and nurture a scalable community of practice for our UX and UI designers, with shared rituals that encourage consistently excellent design, skill sharing and development.
• Embed customer-centricity across the company through leadership, transparency and knowledge sharing.
• Set the UX standards, Lead the way on information architecture, journey flows and design best practices. Scale design capacity in product using tools, processes, structure and ways of working.
• Advocate for new design-driven approaches and improve working practices by  keeping yourself and the rest of the team up to date with the latest practices and technologies in design and the wider development and design field.

IDEAL CANDIDATE | WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR?

Yoco encourages applications from people with diverse backgrounds. We value inclusive working practices and diverse teams. If you’d prefer to work part-time or as a job-share, we’ll facilitate this wherever we can. If you need adjustments to our interview process, please let us know.  

Key Requirements:

• At least six years of product design experience. Our ideal candidate has substantial UX and UI experience, but particularly excels at UX.
• You have a successful track record leading teams and building work relationships. You inspire passion, dedication, and exceptional work from others.
• You have a strong design portfolio demonstrating thoughtful experiences across web and mobile applications—not just static websites.
• You have experience creating large-scale digital experiences, or applications, and know the difference between “good” and “amazing” design solutions.
• You are deeply curious and obsessed with creating great experiences that begin with listening to customers
• You’re passionate about inclusive design and accessibility, and you’ll design with all our users in mind.

THE YOCO FORMULA - HOW WE CREATE VALUEOur values and principles define how we work together, and how we grow.

Core Values- how we do our work

• Stay connected
• Make space to explore
• Keep it simple
• Master your craft

Leadership Principles- how we show up, engage and treat each other

• Get to know each other personally
• Say what you think and challenge me directly
• Be courageous and focus forward
• Don’t let ego get in the way

To support this, we have built a role-based organisation where every individual is given the space to focus and develop their innate strengths. Everyone at Yoco has the opportunity to lead a project and become a specialist, enabling flexibility, collaboration and accountability at all levels. You will be working with a diverse, motivated and skilled team who will continuously stretch you as an individual. To learn more about our culture, go to our #YocoLife page or subscribe to our Exposure Gallery.

Join us on a meaningful journey at Yoco, and help enable our merchants to thrive through Open Commerce!

Please note…
Open positions at Yoco are competitive and we often receive high volumes of applicants. If you have not received further updates on your application after three weeks, you’re welcome to request feedback.