Head of Design

About Us

At Resonate, we're on a mission to embed intelligent, connected technology into the operational fabric of railway operations, driving performance, efficiency, and innovation across the network.

Our vision is bold yet clear: to be the trusted partner, leading the modernisation of railway operations through purposeful innovation. We're not just building technology; we're building the future of how railways run.

We measure our success by the "Resonate Test", the moment when every Route and Operations Team says, "We couldn't run the railway without Resonate" and "Have you asked Resonate?" becomes the go-to question for technology solutions. That's the impact we're striving for, and we're looking for talented individuals who share our passion for making it happen.

If you're ready to be part of something transformative, where your work directly enables safer, smarter, and more efficient rail operations, we'd love to hear from you.

Overview of the Role

The Design Team is central to achieving our vision. This is a new capability within the CTO department, created to explore opportunities, shape ideas, and turn promising concepts into designs that can move confidently into development. The team thrives on variety, ambiguity, and innovation, responding quickly when markets shift, customer needs evolve, or new technologies emerge. It is responsible for two critical areas: working with our customer and product teams to test market opportunities, and creating the high-quality upfront design needed for effective solution development.

The Head of Design brings the leadership, energy and discipline needed to shape opportunities into credible, testable and valuable solutions. This role is ideal for someone who encourages creativity, joining dots across customer need, technology and commercial value, while at the same recognising when design requires rigour. This is an exciting opportunity to build a team, shape its culture, and influence how ideas become real. The role works closely with colleagues across the business to maintain technical integrity and align designs with the wider Data and AI strategy.

What are the key objectives?

As a Head of Design

• Create an environment where diverse expertise, curiosity and systems thinking come together to generate innovative solutions
• Oversee the team’s work to ensure design packages are completed to agreed timescales, scope and quality metrics, balancing rapid prototyping with comprehensive design documentation
• Collaborate effectively with Heads in Development to ensure design intent is preserved, feasibility is validated early, and creative ideas are practically achievable
• Build strong relationships with internal stakeholders to challenge assumptions, uncover real business needs, and translate strategic vision into precise use cases
• Manage and enhance design lifecycle processes as a member of the Management Team, championing approaches that increase agility without compromising rigour
• Establish the Design Team and its culture to be a centre of excellence for architecture, systems thinking, experimentation and customer‑centric design
• Improve productivity across the development lifecycle through reuse, shared components, common interfaces and clearer design artefacts
• Support faster market testing in partnership with Product Strategy
• Ensure designs support the long‑term evolution of our product portfolio, including integration across geographies and operational environments.

Key Accountabilities

1. Line Management

• Lead and develop designers, architects and systems engineers, inspiring the team to deliver on our business ambitions
• Build and maintain capacity and capability across diverse disciplines, identifying skills gaps and nurturing talent to meet future challenges
• Recruit exceptional talent in line with capacity plans
• Act as an advocate of the organisation, cascading information and ensuring objectives are clearly communicated and promoted within the teams
• Lead, mentor and support the team to meet defined objectives, creating space for innovation while maintaining accountability for outcomes
• Ensure proactive identification of learning and development needs, sustained motivation and strong welfare across the team

2. Business Growth and Design Leadership

• Contribute to business growth by shaping innovative, commercially grounded design approaches that stay connected to technical architecture and real operational need
• Lead by action and example, demonstrating our commitment to designing solutions that deliver genuine value to customers over many years
• Set the standards for design excellence across the team, fostering a culture where creativity meets commercial pragmatism

3. Design Delivery, Tools and Architecture

• Lead a team to shape ideas into technically feasible, testable designs before development handoff, maximising business value and reducing misdirected effort
• Drive the adoption of progressive design tools, methodologies and AI‑enabled capabilities that accelerate our work and deepen customer understanding
• Collaborate cross‑portfolio to ensure architectural patterns, data models and integration standards promote reuse, consistency and scalability

4. Market Testing and Operational Design

• Lead the team in rapidly shaping and testing market opportunities through prototypes and proofs of value
• Embed systems engineering and operational considerations early in the design process to ensure products succeed in real‑world environments

5. Product Strategy and Market Insight

• Work closely with Product Strategy to translate opportunities into clear, feasible and commercially grounded design concepts
• Work closely with Client Services to build deep insights into our target markets

Skills and Experience:

This is a new capability for Resonate, and we’re looking for someone ready to help shape it. Your leadership experience could come from leading a team, project or initiative in a software context. What matters is the strengths you bring and your potential to grow within the role.

• Leading, inspiring and developing people, bringing together different perspectives and expertise to achieve clarity even when the way forward is less certain.
• Creative problem-solver and systems thinker, with the ability to make connections across complex customer, operational and technical challenges.
• Ability to apply strong commercial awareness and judgement, connecting customer needs, technical feasibility and market opportunities to practical business value.
• Strong communication and influencing skills enabling constructive challenge and coordination with all stakeholders.

How Our Values Show Up in This Role

Our values underpin how we inspire our people, approach design and create lasting value for our customers.

• Customer Centred Impact: Build deep insights into target markets and uncover real business needs, shaping commercially grounded designs that deliver genuine value to customers.
• Long Term Thinking: Design for the long-term evolution of the product portfolio, promoting reuse, consistency and scalability across geographies and operational environments.
• Courage and Responsibility: Challenge assumptions, validate feasibility early and lead by action and example, creating space for innovation while maintaining accountability for outcomes.
• Equality and Inclusion: Create an environment where diverse expertise comes together, mentoring and supporting colleagues and identifying learning and development needs across the team.
• Innovate with Purpose: Use prototypes and proofs of value to shape and test market opportunities, adopting progressive design tools and AI-enabled capabilities to accelerate work and deepen customer understanding.

Benefits

Work/Life Balance

• This role offers flexibility in location, with any of our three offices available to serve as the successful candidate’s designated office.
• Hybrid working – currently a minimum 1 day in the office each week
  
• 27 days annual leave, in addition to 8 public holidays per year
• 3 discretionary additional days used for shutdown periods (usually over the Christmas/New Year period)
• Family First – provisions and flexible working arrangements to support all colleagues in balancing their responsibilities in and out of work.

Financial

• A competitive salary and pay progression that rewards the value you bring
• Pension plan – currently with Aviva, including matched contributions from 5-8% via salary sacrifice, and access to independent financial advice
• Income protection cover– currently insured for 50% of salary and 10% joint pension contribution in the event of incapacity through illness or injury
• Life assurance cover – currently insured at 6 x annual salary, providing financial peace of mind for those left behind should the unthinkable happen
• Discounted retail vouchers – via two benefits platforms

Wellbeing

• Private health care cover – currently with Bupa, covering you and your immediate dependents on a medical history disregarded basis
• Company sick leave and pay – enhanced provision subject to qualify period of service
• Employee Assistance Programme providing 24/7/365 access to independent and confidential support via an app, web, or helpline to support you with any life challenges