Senior Product Designer, Editorial Technology

Title: Senior Product Designer, Editorial Technology Location: London

About us

The Financial Times ranks among the world’s foremost news organisations. It is known globally for its authority, integrity, and accuracy. Its mission is to provide quality information and services across the globe.

At the FT, curiosity thrives and ambitious thinking is rewarded. Here, you’re given the chance to reach millions, build work that matters and deliver impartial journalism in a polarised world.

In our warm, collaborative culture, you’ll connect with a diverse community of experts who support your growth, career aspirations and wellbeing.

Your future at the FT will be filled with opportunities that challenge and encourage you. With no fixed path, you’ll discover new skills and forge a career that can take you anywhere.

Develop a newsworthy career at the FT.

Our dedication to inclusion and fairness

We believe everyone should have a fair opportunity to contribute, succeed, and reach their full potential. That means ensuring everyone is heard, respected, and valued, while identifying and removing barriers that may get in the way. Our dedication is to be an employer role model, grounded in inclusion and fairness for all.

We want every application to receive fair and thoughtful consideration; therefore, all applications are evaluated by a member of our recruitment team, not by AI.

The role

We’re looking for a Senior Product Designer to join our Editorial Technology team, helping build the tools journalists and editors use to compose, manage, and publish world-class journalism.

You’ll build experiences across Spark, our newsroom content management system (CMS), and related editorial tools supporting written stories, video and audio.

This role involves working on intricate products that directly aid journalism production at the FT. Work often starts without a clear brief or defined project. You will need to be comfortable investigating problems, grasping detailed workflows, and helping decide the appropriate course.

Collaborating with product managers, engineers, and newsroom colleagues, you'll merge user research, systems thinking, and strong design skills to develop intuitive, accessible tools for expert users.

You'll also consider how editorial tools interact with the reader experiences they facilitate across our website and apps, partnering with our Customer Products teams as needed.

AI is increasingly crafting editorial workflows, and you'll have chances to explore how new technologies can assist journalists and editors. These include tools that improve editorial quality and accuracy.

Key responsibilities

• Lead the end-to-end build process, from early problem framing and discovery through information architecture, exploration, prototyping, testing and delivery.
• Develop a deep understanding of how journalists and editors work, using research, workflow mapping and direct engagement to find opportunities for improvement.
• Partner with product managers and engineers to build product direction, define problems and establish clear priorities, particularly where requirements are ambiguous.
• Build intuitive, accessible experiences for complex editorial workflows, including the creation and management of written and multimedia content.
• Work closely with engineering teams to understand technical architecture, data, systems and constraints, ensuring built solutions are practical and achievable.
• Build positive relationships with newsroom collaborators, bringing their expertise into the development process while applying sound design judgement.
• Consider how editorial tools connect with customer-facing experiences, collaborating with Customer Products teams to support consistency and shared development patterns.
• Communicate build decisions, recommendations and trade-offs clearly, helping teams navigate complexity and make informed decisions.
• Investigate ways AI can assist editorial workflows, such as quality and accuracy checks, while collaborating closely with editorial, product, and engineering colleagues.
• Use AI-enabled tools such as Codex or Figma Make, where appropriate, to prototype, test ideas and communicate technical assumptions.
• Stay informed about developments in AI-assisted build and prototyping, bringing relevant approaches and ideas into the team.

Required skills and experience

• Strong product development experience across user research, UX, visual design, information architecture and prototyping.
• A portfolio demonstrating high-quality product development work, your individual contribution and measurable impact.
• Experience crafting and delivering complex digital products, including internal tools and workflows for expert users.
• Demonstrated capability to carry projects from initial problem identification through research, prototyping, validation, and final delivery.
• Strong product and systems thinking, with an ability to understand how interconnected tools, workflows and technologies work together.
• A thoughtful and analytical approach to problem-solving, with the confidence to challenge assumptions and explore alternative solutions.
• Experience planning and conducting proportionate user research, combining qualitative and quantitative insights to inform development decisions.
• Sufficient technical understanding to collaborate effectively with engineers and navigate complex systems, data and technical constraints.
• Strong Figma and prototyping skills, with practical experience applying accessibility principles.
• Experience using AI-assisted prototyping or development tools, with the judgement to assess their opportunities and limitations.
• Excellent communication and collaborator management skills, with the ability to build positive relationships across multidisciplinary teams.
• Confidence working through ambiguity, crafting requirements and helping teams move towards clear, considered solutions.

Desirable

• Experience crafting content management systems, editorial platforms or newsroom tools.
• A grasp of digital publishing workflows, including the creation and management of multimedia content.
• Experience working on products that connect complex internal systems with customer-facing digital experiences.

What’s in it for you? Our benefits

Our benefits vary by location but we are committed to providing outstanding perks across all our offices. These include generous annual leave, medical cover, inclusive parental leave packages, subsidised gym memberships and opportunities to give back to the community. Full details of our benefits are available here.

We currently operate a hybrid model which requires staff to work onsite 50% of the time, subject to role requirements & regular review. While flexible working requests will be considered, not all patterns are suitable for all roles. We believe this balanced approach supports flexibility and protects our culture, making collaboration and communication easier, encouraging positive relationships and team cohesion, and supporting peer learning. We reserve discretion on reasonable notice to change this approach either generally or for specific individuals or teams.

Accessibility

We are a disability confident employer and Valuable 500 signatory.

Further information

At the FT, we value innovation and the adoption of technology and accept that applicants may bring AI tools to bear in their application process. Feel free to use AI to aid your application, but all information you provide must be honest and accurately display your skills, experience, and qualifications.

Candidates should be aware that the use of AI during the application process might be observed to guarantee a fair and transparent hiring experience for everyone.

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