🚀 Be part of a movement to change the way Europe pays
In today’s digital world, payments often still feel outdated: random delays and confusing rules make it harder than it should be to pay and get paid. The European Payments Initiative (EPI) is here to change all that, forever. With Wero, our digital wallet, we make sending and receiving money simple, seamless and secure across France, Belgium and Germany, with more countries and omnichannel solutions coming soon. Supported by 16 major banks and the two largest European acquirers, EPI is building a new, proudly European payment system: easy, instant and transparent, all for the greater good.

🔎 What's In It For You
In this role, you define and drive the end-to-end product design strategy and UI vision for Wero, with a strong focus on coherence, usability and high-quality interfaces across products and lifecycles. You operate at both system and detail level: shaping long-term experience principles while designing critical journeys and interaction patterns yourself. You turn complex business, regulatory and technical requirements into clear, accessible and elegant solutions. Your work is evidence-based. You plan and synthesize qualitative and quantitative research, connect business objectives to user needs, and translate insights into clear design direction. You mentor designers, elevate standards across teams and communicate strategy and trade-offs clearly to senior stakeholders. At EPI, we embrace a remote-first culture, enabling teams to work from their country of residence, with in-person gatherings at least once per quarter to strengthen collaboration and connection.

🐝 About The Team
You will join a Design team of around 12 across Product Design, Research, Content Design and Design Operations, reporting into the Head of Experience Design.
• Product Designers are embedded in cross-functional product teams.
• Research, Content Design and Operations work transversally across domains.

As Principal Designer (Design Strategy), You
• Collaborate across multiple domains and product areas
• Act as a senior reference point for product design strategy and UI craft
• Partner closely with other senior designers and the Head of Experience Design

You work within a product-led, cross-functional model, joining the right touch points to anticipate change, influence direction and contribute where your strategic and craft expertise creates the most leverage.

💥 Your impact
• Lead by example in UI craftsmanship, setting clear standards for visual quality, interaction design, accessibility and detail in high-impact product areas.
• Define and drive product design strategy end-to-end, translating product and business direction into coherent experience principles, journeys and shipped UI across platforms.
• Shape and articulate the long-term UI vision for Wero, including emerging payment use cases, ensuring alignment between business goals, regulatory requirements and user needs.
• Partner with Product, Engineering and Compliance to transform complex constraints into intuitive, accessible interface solutions.
• Plan, drive and synthesize discovery and research activities to inform strategy, validate decisions and guide iteration.
• Mentor designers and provide structured feedback that raises overall design maturity, while clearly communicating rationale and trade-offs to senior stakeholders.

💻 Technology stack
Primary: Figma, Slack, Miro, Microsoft Suite, Confluence, Jira
Secondary: Analytics tools (e.g. Amplitude, Mixpanel or similar), prototyping tools, After Effects or similar for motion, user research tools (e.g. UserTesting or similar), AI tools (nice to have)

🕵🏻♀️ To succeed, you should meet at least 70% of these requirements
Product Design Craft & Systems Thinking
• 9+ years in product design within product-led organisations, including ownership of complex product areas
• Strong portfolio demonstrating shipped, high-quality digital products across mobile and/or web
• Experience defining product or experience strategy and translating it into coherent journeys and shipped UI
• Advanced proficiency in Figma
• Solid accessibility practice, designing to WCAG AA level or higher

Designing In Regulated & Complex Environments
• Experience designing end-to-end journeys in complex digital products from discovery to iteration
• Experience in payments, fintech, financial services or other regulated domains is a strong plus
• Experience shaping coherent multi-platform ecosystems (mobile, web, partner touchpoints)

Research & Evidence-Based Decision Making
• Comfortable using qualitative and quantitative research methods to inform and validate design decisions
• Able to connect insights to product strategy and adjust direction based on evidence

Collaboration, Communication & Stakeholder Management
• Clear communicator who can explain design rationale and trade-offs to technical and non-technical audiences
• Experience influencing senior stakeholders and aligning cross-functional teams
• Able to zoom between long-term vision and detailed UI decisions
• Experience working in distributed or multi-market teams is a plus

Languages
• Fluent English (C1/C2) is mandatory
• Additional European languages are a plus

A degree in Design, HCI or related fields is welcome but not required. If you do not meet every requirement but believe you can make a strong impact, we encourage you to apply.

🪜 If this looks like you, the recruitment steps are:
• A first call with one of our recruiters (45 min)
• Portfolio review + Job-Specific Skills Interview (60 min) with your hiring manager + relevant experts
• Culture Interview (60 min) with a cross-functional panel of design + engineering leadership
• Hopefully, an offer you can’t refuse

We respect senior candidates’ time. There are no unpaid design exercises.

⛔ Turn back if …
• You prefer fully structured environments with minimal ambiguity and limited strategic ownership
• You are not comfortable shaping experience direction with incomplete information and influencing senior stakeholders
• You prefer narrow execution over cross-domain collaboration, mentorship and raising design standards

Otherwise apply! 🫶 Our commitment to equal employment opportunities
EPI offers the same job opportunities to all, without distinction of gender, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, social status, disability or age. EPI promotes the development of an inclusive work environment that mirrors the diversity of the clients our product is serving.

Principal Designer – Design Strategy – Remote-First

EPI Company