Freelance Senior Product Designer

AKQA is a company that believes in the imaginative application of art and science to create beautiful ideas, products, and services. They are seeking an experienced Freelance Senior Product Designer to support a global leader in digital payments, focusing on both UX and UI design to enhance user experiences across complex digital products.

Responsibilities:

• Bring balanced UX and UI capabilities to the work, moving fluidly between interaction design, information architecture, and high-craft visual execution across complex digital product ecosystems
• Lead the design of large and complex systems of interactions, bringing clarity and coherence to multi-step, multi-lane experiences
• Contribute meaningfully to design systems from both a UX and UI perspective, including components, patterns, tokens, and interaction states
• Develop and deliver high-fidelity wireframes, flows, and interactive prototypes primarily utilizing Figma, with expert-level command of components, variants, auto layout, libraries, and prototyping capabilities
• Demonstrate advanced proficiency in leveraging AI tools to drive innovation and efficiency across all stages of the product design lifecycle
• Work with team members to develop and refine streamlined design processes, setting new standards for quality and delivery
• Proactively pursue opportunities to improve strategy and approach in order to better address client and user objectives
• Define consumers, processes, and ideas from an objective point of view grounded in research and insight, and effectively communicate that point of view to senior stakeholders on both the agency and client sides
• Lead and support designers across multiple projects, taking responsibility for the quality and consistency of all team documentation and deliverables
• Contribute to thought leadership activities within the product design discipline

Requirements:

• Bring balanced UX and UI capabilities to the work, moving fluidly between interaction design, information architecture, and high-craft visual execution across complex digital product ecosystems
• Lead the design of large and complex systems of interactions, bringing clarity and coherence to multi-step, multi-lane experiences
• Contribute meaningfully to design systems from both a UX and UI perspective, including components, patterns, tokens, and interaction states
• Develop and deliver high-fidelity wireframes, flows, and interactive prototypes primarily utilizing Figma, with expert-level command of components, variants, auto layout, libraries, and prototyping capabilities
• Demonstrate advanced proficiency in leveraging AI tools to drive innovation and efficiency across all stages of the product design lifecycle
• Work with team members to develop and refine streamlined design processes, setting new standards for quality and delivery
• Proactively pursue opportunities to improve strategy and approach in order to better address client and user objectives
• Define consumers, processes, and ideas from an objective point of view grounded in research and insight, and effectively communicate that point of view to senior stakeholders on both the agency and client sides
• Lead and support designers across multiple projects, taking responsibility for the quality and consistency of all team documentation and deliverables
• Contribute to thought leadership activities within the product design discipline
• A compelling portfolio of distinctive work that demonstrates both strong UX thinking and refined UI craft, with clear evidence of systems thinking across complex digital platforms
• Able to develop simple and elegant design solutions to complex design problems
• Expert-level Figma skills and strong proficiency with leading industry-standard design and prototyping tools
• Exceptional written and oral communication skills, with the ability to present and advocate for design decisions to technical and non-technical audiences
• Expertise in cross-functional collaboration across design, product, strategy, and engineering
• Assists and guides other designers in their professional development, fostering a culture of innovation and continuous improvement
• Fosters progressive and limitless thinking