Lead Product Designer

Role Overview

• Design as a discipline is changing fast. New tools, new methods, AI reshaping what designers do and how they do it.
• N5 already has strong design leadership. The vision is clear, the strategy is set. What we need now is someone who can hold the execution side while keeping one eye on where the field is going.
• You’re our most capable product designer in the room. When a client engagement needs someone who can set the direction, make the hard calls, and show what good looks like, that’s you.
• Alongside your own projects, you coach and support a team of product designers. Not by managing their schedules, but by working alongside them. Giving feedback that makes the next version better. Helping someone think through a problem they’re stuck on. Sharing what you know so the whole team raises its level.
• You’re also the person who keeps track of where design is going. New tools, new methods, the shift that AI is creating in how designers work. You bring that back into the team so we stay sharp.

Requirements

• Hold fortnightly 1:1s, at minimum. Give feedback that makes the next version of someone’s work better. Help them see what their work could become, then get out of the way so they can get there.
• Keep design standards present in the work, not just at the end. You’re not the final check. You’re the person who reminds the team what we stand for, early enough that it shows up in the output.
• Own hiring end-to-end when roles open. Own the onboarding of new designers into how N5 works.
• Make it safe for people to say what they think and surface problems early. Model that yourself. Don’t tolerate behaviour that makes people feel unsafe doing it.
• Reduce friction between design, product, and engineering. Not by controlling the interfaces, but by making collaboration easier.
• Take on the complex engagements. Frame the problem, run the workshop, turn an ambiguous brief into something the team can act on.
• Own the full design process on key projects, from research and strategy through interaction design, UI, and prototyping.
• Raise the visual level of everything we ship. You have strong opinions on brand, visual design, and motion, and you use them. Not to redo other people’s work, but to show what it could be.
• Apply our MX™ design philosophy. Find the moments worth amplifying, remove the friction that costs customers trust, and know when less is the right call.
• Stay close to where design is going. Bring new tools, methods, and thinking back to the team before the field moves on without us.
• Represent design credibly in client meetings and internal forums. You’re the voice design needs in the room.
• Notice when a project is drifting from what the client actually needs. Flag it early, bring a fix.
• Spot utilization, scope, and overload risks before they become problems. Bring a proposal, not just a warning.
• Keep design embedded in how work gets planned and delivered, not added at the end.
• You’ve been doing this a long time and you’re good at it. You know what good design looks like and you can defend that view to anyone.
• But what drives you now isn’t just your own work. It’s the team. You think about design as a culture problem as much as a craft problem. You’ve built rituals and feedback systems that made the people around you better. You know that raising the floor matters more than raising your own ceiling.
• You move between strategy and execution without effort. You can run a workshop and you can open Figma. Facilitation isn’t something you studied. It’s how you work.
• You’re connected to the field beyond your job. You go to events, mentor people, write, or build things on the side. You stay curious because you want to.
• You’re direct. You give honest feedback. You push back on bad ideas, including your own. You make it safe for others to do the same.
• English is your working language. Dutch is a genuine plus for client conversations and internal culture.
• Added bonus if you also bring:
• Experience across product design, service design, and strategy. You’re comfortable at all three levels.
• Hands-on Figma craft and experimentation with tools like Rive, Lovable, Framer, or Webflow.
• An understanding of design systems, accessibility, and digital sustainability.
• Curiosity about AI as a design tool. You’ve thought about what it changes and what it doesn’t.

Benefits

• A benefits package built around trust: mobility budget or company car, smartphone budget, mobile subscription, MacBook, pension plan, hospitalization insurance, net expenses, meal vouchers, 12 additional holidays and shared rewards.
• How you grow hereWe use our Impact x Growth x Reward (IGR) framework, to make progression clear and evidence-based. Your growth is tied to the impact you create: on clients, on the work, on the team around you.
• N5 is also a place where ideas become ventures. Four businesses have been built here already. If you’re working on something, we don’t ask you to leave it at the door.
• Why join us?Because the work matters. And so do our people.
• Ship real products for Coca-Cola, Le Pain Quotidien, Telenet, and others.
• Work with people who will tell you when something isn’t good enough. They mean it as a compliment.
• Build the design culture, don’t inherit someone else’s.
• Stay close to the craft while growing the team around you.