Lead Product Designer
Lead design at Kernel, coaching a talented team while shaping simple, impactful products that help New Zealanders build their financial futures.
About Kernel
Kernel is one of New Zealand's fastest growing fintechs, helping Kiwis build long term wealth through KiwiSaver, managed funds, savings products and investing. We're looking for a Lead Product Designer to lead our design practice while remaining hands on in solving complex product challenges. This is a true player-coach role, combining leadership of a small design team with ownership of high impact product work.
The Opportunity
Reporting to the Chief Product Officer, you'll lead a team of 2-3 Product Designers and work closely with Product, Engineering and Marketing. You'll drive design quality across our web and mobile experiences, evolve our design system, coach designers, and help shape how design contributes to product strategy and customer outcomes. You'll also help us explore how AI can improve both our design process and the products we build.
What You'll Do
Lead, coach and develop a small team of Product Designers.
Stay hands on, designing some of Kernel's most important product experiences.
Drive consistency and quality across web and mobile.
Own and evolve our design system.
Partner closely with Product and Engineering from discovery through to delivery.
Use customer insight, data and product thinking to inform decisions.
Help establish AI-enabled design practices across the team.
What You'll Bring
Strong experience designing customer facing digital products.
Experience leading or mentoring designers.
Expertise working with design systems.
Excellent product and design judgement.
Strong Figma and prototyping skills.
A collaborative approach and ability to influence across teams.
Confidence using AI tools within your workflow.
Nice to Have
Fintech, financial services or other regulated industry experience.
Strong visual design capability.
Brand, marketing or accessibility design experience.
Experience designing AI-powered products.
Why Join Kernel?
Lead design in a growing fintech where design has genuine influence.
Shape a team and design practice as the business scales.
Build products that help Kiwis grow their wealth.
Flexible hybrid working (minimum three days in the office).
Health insurance, parental leave top-up and professional development support.
Apply
If you're passionate about great product design, enjoy developing others, and want to help shape the future of design at Kernel, we'd love to hear from you. Please send us your CV, portfolio and a brief cover letter outlining your interest in the role.
Visit our careers page for more on working at Kernel and follow us on LinkedIn & Instagram to stay connected.
- Department
- Product
- Locations
- Auckland HQ
- Remote status
- Hybrid
About Kernel Wealth
Kernel is on a mission to help everyone become wealthier. We’re a platform offering a range of investment products and innovative tools and technology to grow wealth - with ease and all in one place.
We’re passionate about leveraging technology and our financial expertise to create the best way to grow and manage money. Our trusted passive investment approach takes the guesswork out of creating a diversified portfolio while remaining cost-effective and accessible.
We help busy and ambitious Kiwis including families, individuals, iwi groups and charitable trusts achieve their goals, gain financial stability and unlock more opportunities.