Head of Product Design

Company Description

iKhokha is a place where chance takers become change makers.
At iKhokha, we’re made to make it. As you'd expect, our pace is fast-moving and ever-changing. We like it that way. As one of the fastest growing Fintech's in Africa we've built a team of global change-makers who want to make an impact. If you believe that you are made to make it, be a chance-taker and help us empower small businesses in South Africa. 

Job Description

At iKhokha, design isn’t decoration, it’s a strategic advantage.

Step in as our Head of Product Design and own the craft, the systems, and the vision that shape how thousands of businesses experience our products every day.

So, what will you do? 

You will be responsible for setting the vision, standards, and operating model for design at iKhokha.

This role goes beyond managing designers or approving UI. It exists to ensure that design is a competitive advantage for iKhokha; through deep customer empathy, strong UX thinking, high-quality UI execution, and a scalable design system that enables fast, consistent delivery across product and engineering teams.

You will be accountable for:

• The quality and coherence of UX and UI across the entire product ecosystem.
• The maturity of the design function, including people, processes, and standards.
• The design system and design-to-engineering handover process.
• Helping iKhokha differentiate at the experience layer, not just features.
• Progressively closing the gap between design and front-end implementation, including the use of AI-assisted tooling where appropriate.

This is a hands-on leadership role: strategic where it matters, operational where needed, and visible across the organisation.

In addition to the above, you will: 

Own the end-to-end design vision for iKhokha’s products and be responsible for ensuring that:

• UX and UI decisions are grounded in deep problem understanding, not just aesthetics.
• Design work consistently reflects merchant needs, business outcomes, and technical realities.
• Design quality improves year-on-year, not just through polish, but through better thinking.

Be the owner and steward of the iKhokha design system. This is a first-class responsibility, not a side project. Accountabilities include:

• Defining, maintaining, and evolving the design system (components, patterns, tokens, guidelines).
• Ensuring adoption across product and engineering teams.
• Making the design system a speed enabler, not a constraint.
• Partnering closely with Engineering to ensure design system components are buildable, performant, and reused.

Be accountable for building a strong, confident, and increasingly autonomous design team. This includes:

• Coaching designers to move beyond UI execution into UX thinking and problem framing.
• Developing designers’ ability to articulate rationale, trade-offs, and business value.
• Creating clear expectations around quality, ownership, and accountability.
• Ensuring each designer has a development plan aligned to both team and company needs.

The Head of Product Design is a visible product leader, not someone who operates in a design silo. You are expected to:

• Actively participate in senior leadership and portfolio discussions.
• Partner closely with Product, Engineering, Growth, and Operations leaders.
• Adapt communication style to different audiences, from designers to executives.
• Clearly articulate the business value of design decisions, not just the craft.

The Head of Product Design is responsible for materially improving the handover and translation from design to build. This includes:

• Improving how designs are specified, validated, and handed over to engineers.
• Exploring modern workflows where design outputs move closer to production-ready artefacts.

Leveraging AI-assisted tools (where appropriate) to:

• Accelerate iteration.
• Reduce manual handoff friction.
• Enable designers to experiment with front-end concepts more directly.

Qualifications

• Degree or equivalent experience in Product Design, UX, Interaction Design, or related discipline.

Deal Breakers: 

Minimum 8 years’ experience in Product / UX / Service Design roles with the following:

• At least 4+ years leading and developing senior designers or design managers.
• Proven experience working in product-led, cross-functional teams.
• Demonstrated ownership of design systems, UX strategy, and large-scale product experiences.
• Design leadership and people development as well as UX strategy and systems thinking.
• Strong UI sensibility and quality bar as well as the ability to simplify complexity and articulate “the why” behind design decisions.
• Product thinking and commercial awareness as well as executive-level communication and influence.

In addition to the above, after 12–18 months, your impact will be visible through:

• Noticeably stronger UX quality across iKhokha products.
• A design system that is actively used and trusted.
• Designers who operate with greater confidence, autonomy, and influence.
• Fewer late-stage design changes and less rework.
• Stronger alignment between design, product, and engineering.
• iKhokha being recognised internally and externally for experience-led differentiation.

Additional Information

Perks of joining the Tribe?

• You get to work in a high growth company. Sink your teeth into meaningful work with tangible results you are accountable for.
• Hybrid, remote and in office work models.
• Remuneration & Benefits. We offer company contributions to Medical Aid and a group risk scheme.
• Visionary leadership. 
• Study leave.  
• Access to on demand learning and development.
• A friendly, collaborative culture and a team of all-round-lekker humans (it’s true, we surveyed our employees and they told us so).
• If you find yourself at HQ, coffee on tap and a selection of hot beverages provided by our onsite Barista. 

Stay Sharp!
Job scams are out there, but we’ve got your back. Here’s how to keep it real when applying:

Apply the iK way:
Go via our Careers page or verified platforms (Smart Recruiters).
We’ll never ask for payment, personal financial details, or anything unusual during the hiring process. If someone does, it’s a scam, report it.
If something feels off, pause and confirm the role on our site before responding.

Your journey to join the iKTribe starts with trust and we’re here to keep it simple and secure.