Senior Service Designer

Job Title: Senior Service & Experience Designer
Location: Flexible (Key Hubs: Leeds, Manchester)
Reports To: Product Director
Contract: Full-Time

About Cox Automotive Europe
Cox Automotive Europe is reimagining the future of automotive commerce through a groundbreaking pan-European digital platform. We empower dealers, OEMs, buyers, and retailers with innovative tools that bridge physical and digital ecosystems. Join us to design services that redefine how Europe's automotive industry connects and thrives.

Role Overview
As a Senior Service & Experience Designer, you'll wear multiple hats: part strategist, part systems thinker, and part hands-on designer. You'll orchestrate end-to-end service experiences while delivering polished UX/UI solutions, ensuring our platform works seamlessly for users and the complex ecosystem they operate in. This role is ideal for a "T-shaped" designer who thrives in ambiguity and can pivot from high-level service blueprints to pixel-perfect interfaces.

Key Responsibilities

1. Service Design Leadership
   - Lead service blueprinting workshops to map frontstage (dealer/buyer interactions) and backstage (OEM data flows, compliance workflows) processes.
   - Identify ecosystem risks (e.g., GDPR conflicts, cross-border tax complexities) and design mitigation strategies.
   - Collaborate with legal, operations, and partners to co-create scalable service policies (e.g., dispute resolution frameworks).
2. UX/UI Execution
   - Translate service blueprints into intuitive user journeys, wireframes, and high-fidelity prototypes (Figma, Adobe XD).
   - Conduct usability testing and iterate on UI components (e.g., dealer dashboards, buyer search interfaces).
   - Evolve our design system to ensure consistency across markets while accommodating regional needs.
3. Research & Synthesis
   - Plan and execute mixed-methods research: contextual inquiries with dealers, diary studies with buyers, SME interviews with OEMs.
   - Synthesize insights into actionable artifacts (personas, journey maps, Jobs-to-be-Done frameworks).
   - Advocate for underserved stakeholders (e.g., warehouse staff impacted by inventory tool changes).
4. Cross-Functional Collaboration
   - Embed with agile squads (inventory, marketplace, decision engine) as a "service design ambassador," ensuring features align with ecosystem needs.
   - Partner with data scientists to operationalize behavioural insights (e.g., "How might dealer pain points inform ML model prioritization?").
5. Scalable Advocacy
   - Train product and engineering teams in service design basics (e.g., journey mapping, actor-network analysis).
   - Build a repository of reusable templates (Miro boards, research playbooks) to democratize service thinking.

Qualifications

Essential
- 5+ years in service design, UX, or hybrid roles, with a portfolio showcasing end-to-end service ecosystems and UI/UX deliverables.
- Fluency in both service design tools (blueprints, stakeholder maps) and UX tools (Figma, UserTesting, Hotjar).
- Proven ability to simplify complexity: You've designed for multi-sided platforms (B2B2C) or regulated industries (automotive, fintech, logistics).
- Comfort with agile rituals (sprints, scrums) and dual-track delivery (discovery + development).

Desired
- Experience with AI-driven interfaces (e.g., chatbots, predictive analytics dashboards).
- Fluency in European languages or experience designing for multilingual users.
- Basic coding skills (HTML/CSS, React) or familiarity with developer workflows.