Product Design Lead

Company Overview

Metrea delivers effects-as-a-service to national security partners across five domains and more than a dozen mission areas. These include airborne ISR, electronic warfare, secure communications, aerial refuelling, special air missions, aerial firefighting, and advanced simulation. We own the whole stack: designing, building, and operating turnkey capabilities that give our partners decisive, asymmetric advantage against rapidly evolving threats.

Our operating model is built around three interlocking pillars. The Support Groups provide a global shared-service – spanning people, finance, platform, operations, legal, and engagement. This frees up our Core Groups, who develop and own mission capabilities end-to-end, to focus entirely on delivery. The Market Groups apply a regional lens, ensuring that our agile and adaptable capabilities remain aligned to the wicked problems that matter most to our partners across the Americas, EMEA, and Asia-Pacific.

At the heart of our model is a simple but powerful idea: be a true partner with skin in the game. Our partners need effects, not just equipment. By owning the full stack – from the lab to the field – we are able to drive a continuous cycle of innovation that keeps our partners ahead. It's a fast-moving, intellectually demanding environment where talented people are given real responsibility, work on problems that matter, and contribute to an enterprise that is growing quickly and deliberately.

Headquartered in Washington, DC, with facilities across the United States, the United Kingdom, as well as Continental Europe and Asia-Pacific.

Group Overview

The Digital and Synthetic Group (D&S) is committed to providing mission-driven information solutions that seamlessly bridge the digital and physical realms. Leveraging cutting-edge technologies and advanced platforms, we empower operational readiness and elevate situational awareness across diverse domains - including air, maritime, and space.

Position Summary

As our Product Design Lead you will lead a team of Product Designers who are responsible for the UI and UX elements of our software products. You will ensure that the Product Design capability has the right people, tools, and frameworks to deliver functionally excellent and aesthetically beautiful software.

This role can be based in either our London, UK or Stockholm, Sweden office.

What You'll Do

Provide people leadership to a team of 4-10 Product Designers (clarifying job roles, hiring, developing skills, performance management, and resource planning)

Lead regular Product Design meetings including teambuilding and development workshops

Promote the Product Design capability across the enterprise to ensure other Groups know what Product Design does

Work closely with other capabilities (Product Management, Creative Design) to develop a design system that can be used across multiple products present and future

Learn about Metrea's strategy, Firmware (see below), and work systems and ensure the team continues to develop in this area

What You Bring

Enthusiasm for cross-functional collaboration, relationship-building, and shared purpose; your calendar is likely to be 50% meetings

A passion for nature, art, or the humanities alongside your technical abilities

Experience successfully leading a team distributed across multiple products or feature areas

Familiarity with different software platform technologies (web, Windows, mobile, VR, AR, AI) and typical design tools (Figma, React, Photoshop, etc.)

Clear understanding of how to scale Product Design within a growing organization using frameworks, governance, and systems

Benefits

Private Medical Insurance

Subsided gym membership / plans through Wellhub

Electric Car scheme

Cycle to work scheme

Free lunch on office days

Enhanced Parental Leave

30 days annual PTO plus b/h

Bonus Scheme

Personal development opportunities

Work Authorization / Security Clearance

The employee will have the legal right to work in either the United Kingdom or Sweden and will be able to produce the required right-to-work documentation.

Position Type and Expected Hours of Work

This is a full-time non-exempt position with typical working hours of Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Hours and work shifts may change in accordance with department and business needs. Exempt Employees must have the ability to be on-call and available, as business needs require. Non-Exempt employees may be required to work over 40 hours per week with approval from the department manager.

Work Environment

This job operates in an office setting.

Travel

Travel will be required between our London, Harwell, and Stockholm offices, with occasional travel to our offices in the USA.

Our Firmware

At Metrea, our single core value is Rooted in Humility, and our four cornerstone attributes are Entrepreneurial, Systematic, Discerning, and Over-Deliver. These form what we call our Teammate Firmware. Just like technical firmware connects software and hardware, our Firmware is the constant interface between our mission and our people. It defines how we show up, how we work together, and how we solve complex problems.

Our team Firmware creates a web-like, hyper-collaborative, dynamically hierarchical way of working that helps us adapt quickly, communicate openly, and distribute decision-making to where expertise actually lives. It enables groups to self-organize around hard problems, shift fluidly as priorities evolve, and operate with the trust, curiosity, and discipline required in a complex mission space. This foundation allows us to deliver elegant, effective solutions and uphold our purpose: protecting our precious inheritance.