Senior Product Designer

📍 Job Overview

Job Title: Senior Product Designer Company: Ververica GmbH Location: Madrid, Community of Madrid, Spain Job Type: FULL_TIME Category: Product Design / UX/UI Date Posted: 2026-02-10T13:16:10.038 Experience Level: 6+ Years Remote Status: Hybrid (On-site, with potential for remote flexibility)

🚀 Role Summary

• Lead the end-to-end design process for complex, data-driven products, focusing on user experience and visual coherence for technical users.
• Translate intricate technical capabilities and data concepts into intuitive and scalable user interfaces for dashboards, workflows, and systems.
• Collaborate closely with Product Management and Engineering teams within an agile framework to define requirements and deliver high-quality design solutions.
• Contribute to the evolution and maintenance of a robust product design system, ensuring consistency and scalability across the Ververica Unified Streaming Data Platform.

📝 Enhancement Note: While the job is listed as 'TELECOMMUTE' with the derived remote status as 'true', the 'ai_work_arrangement' field indicates 'On-site'. Given the location is Madrid, Spain, this suggests a hybrid model where the designer is expected to be in the Madrid office for a significant portion of their work, likely to foster collaboration. The term 'Hybrid' is used to reflect this nuanced arrangement.

📈 Primary Responsibilities

• Own and execute the complete product design lifecycle, from initial user research and conceptualization through to final design implementation and iteration.
• Design user interfaces for cloud-based applications, with a specific emphasis on complex dashboards, data-heavy interfaces, and intricate workflows tailored for engineers and technical professionals.
• Develop and present Proofs of Concept (PoCs), low- to high-fidelity prototypes, and interaction models to effectively explore design hypotheses and validate proposed solutions early in the development cycle.
• Ensure clarity, usability, and visual consistency across all design deliverables, effectively bridging the gap between complex technical functionalities and user understanding.
• Actively contribute to the development, refinement, and governance of the product design system, ensuring adherence to established standards and promoting scalability across the platform.
• Partner strategically with product managers to define product roadmaps and with engineering teams to ensure accurate and high-fidelity implementation of design specifications.
• Leverage qualitative and quantitative data, including user feedback and analytics, to inform design decisions, measure design impact, and drive continuous improvement of the user experience.
• Champion best practices in usability, accessibility, and overall design quality throughout the product development process, advocating for user needs at every stage.

📝 Enhancement Note: The primary responsibilities have been expanded to detail the 'end-to-end' design process, specific types of interfaces (dashboards, workflows), the importance of PoCs and prototypes for technical products, and the role of data in design decisions, all of which are standard expectations for a Senior Product Designer in a B2B SaaS environment dealing with complex data.

🎓 Skills & Qualifications

Education: Bachelor's degree in Design, Human-Computer Interaction, Computer Science, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.

Experience: 6+ years of professional experience in Product Design, UX Design, or a closely related role, with a demonstrated track record of designing and delivering complex, user-centered digital products.

Required Skills:

• Product Design Expertise: Proven ability to lead the full product design lifecycle, from discovery to delivery, for sophisticated digital products.
• Data-Driven Design: Extensive experience designing intuitive and effective interfaces for data-driven applications, complex dashboards, and sophisticated workflows.
• Prototyping Proficiency: Solid skills in creating effective low- to high-fidelity prototypes and Proofs of Concept (PoCs) to articulate design vision and validate user flows.
• Technical User Focus: Demonstrated ability to design clear, usable, and efficient interfaces specifically for technical or professional user audiences.
• Design Systems: Experience in either working with existing design systems or contributing to their development, ensuring design consistency and scalability.
• Core Design Skills: Strong command of visual design principles, interaction design patterns, and information architecture best practices.
• Agile Collaboration: Proven ability to collaborate effectively within cross-functional teams in an agile development environment.
• Communication Skills: Excellent verbal and written communication abilities, with a strong capacity to articulate and defend design decisions to diverse stakeholders.

Preferred Skills:

• Cloud & Enterprise Software: Experience designing products within cloud environments, developer tools, or enterprise software platforms.
• Data Visualization: Strong background and practical application of data visualization principles and best practices for presenting complex data.
• Metrics-Driven Design: Familiarity with utilizing metrics and data analytics to inform design decisions and validate design outcomes.
• Frontend Engineering Collaboration: Experience working closely with frontend engineers to ensure seamless and accurate implementation of designs.
• UX Research & Testing: Exposure to and practical application of UX research methodologies, including usability testing and user feedback analysis.
• Scalability & Performance: Experience designing for products that require high scalability, performance sensitivity, or extensive configurability.

📝 Enhancement Note: The "Required Skills" section has been populated with specific competencies derived from the job description's "Basic Qualifications" and "In this role, you will have the opportunity to" sections, framed with operations-relevant keywords. "Preferred Skills" are drawn from the "Preferred Qualifications" for added depth.

📊 Process & Systems Portfolio Requirements

Portfolio Essentials:

• Case Studies: Comprehensive case studies showcasing end-to-end product design projects, with a clear emphasis on problem definition, design process, and user-centric solutions.
• Data-Driven Solutions: Demonstrations of how you've designed for data-intensive applications, including examples of dashboards, analytics interfaces, or workflow management systems.
• Prototyping Examples: Showcase of your prototyping capabilities through interactive prototypes or PoCs that effectively communicate complex interactions and user flows.
• Design System Contributions: Evidence of your involvement with design systems, whether contributing to components, maintaining consistency, or advocating for their use.
• Technical User Focus: Examples that clearly illustrate your ability to design for technical or professional user personas, highlighting understanding of their unique needs and workflows.

Process Documentation:

• Workflow Design: Ability to document and present the rationale behind complex workflow designs, including user journey mapping and interaction flows.
• System Integration: Understanding of how designs integrate with underlying systems and data structures, with the ability to articulate these considerations.
• Iterative Improvement: Showcase of how you've used feedback and data to iterate on designs, demonstrating a commitment to continuous optimization.

📝 Enhancement Note: This section is tailored to a Senior Product Designer role, emphasizing the need for a portfolio that demonstrates the full design process, iterative improvements, and the ability to handle complex, data-intensive products, which are critical for operations and GTM functions relying on such tools.

💵 Compensation & Benefits

Salary Range: Based on the Senior Product Designer role, 6+ years of experience, and the location of Madrid, Spain, a competitive salary range can be estimated. Typical ranges for this level in Spain's tech market can fall between €50,000 to €75,000 annually, depending on the specific company's compensation philosophy, the candidate's precise experience, and the exact scope of responsibilities.

Benefits:

• Competitive Salary: A strong base salary commensurate with experience and market rates for senior design roles in Spain.
• Health Insurance: Comprehensive health insurance coverage for employees and potentially dependents.
• Professional Development: Opportunities for continuous learning, including access to training, conferences, and workshops relevant to product design, UX, and data visualization.
• Work-Life Balance: Support for a healthy work-life balance, potentially including flexible working hours and a hybrid work model.
• Stock Options/Equity: Potential for participation in company equity or stock option plans, aligning employee success with company growth.
• Relocation Assistance: If applicable, support for candidates relocating to Madrid, Spain.

Working Hours: The standard working hours are approximately 40 hours per week, typical for a full-time position in Spain. The hybrid work arrangement allows for flexibility in how these hours are structured, balancing in-office collaboration with remote focus time.

📝 Enhancement Note: Salary range is an estimate based on research for Senior Product Designers in Madrid, Spain, considering the company's likely focus on enterprise software and data platforms. Benefits are standard for tech companies in Western Europe, tailored to a senior role.

🎯 Team & Company Context

🏢 Company Culture

Industry: Technology – specifically focused on data processing, streaming data platforms, and cloud-native solutions. Ververica GmbH is a key player in the Apache Flink ecosystem, providing enterprise-grade solutions for real-time data analytics.

Company Size: Ververica GmbH is part of the enterprise software sector, likely falling into the medium-to-large size category for a specialized tech company. This size typically means established processes but still allows for agility and direct impact.

Founded: Ververica GmbH was founded in 2019, spinning out of Alibaba Cloud. This provides a strong foundation with deep technical expertise and a history of developing robust, scalable data solutions.

Team Structure:

• The Product Design team likely comprises a mix of Product Designers, UX Researchers, and potentially UI Designers, reporting up through a Head of Product or a Design Lead.
• Designers operate within cross-functional product teams, working closely with Product Managers and Engineering leads who are responsible for specific product areas or features.
• Collaboration is a core tenet, with designers expected to work seamlessly with engineering to ensure design feasibility and quality implementation, and with product management to align on strategy and user needs.

Methodology:

• Data-Driven Insights: Emphasis on using data, both qualitative and quantitative, to inform design decisions and measure the impact of design solutions.
• Agile Development: Design processes are integrated into agile sprints, requiring designers to be adaptable and responsive to evolving requirements.
• User-Centricity: A strong focus on understanding the needs of technical users (engineers, data scientists) and translating those needs into usable, efficient, and scalable product experiences.
• Design System Governance: Active management and evolution of the design system to ensure consistency, efficiency, and maintainability across the product portfolio.

Company Website: https://www.ververica.com/

📝 Enhancement Note: Information about the company's industry, founding, and core technology (Apache Flink) is crucial for a Senior Product Designer to understand the context of the complex, data-driven products they will be designing for. The team structure and methodology reflect typical agile, cross-functional environments in enterprise tech.

📈 Career & Growth Analysis

Operations Career Level: This role is positioned as a Senior Product Designer. This implies a high level of autonomy, the ability to lead design initiatives for significant product areas, and mentorship potential for more junior designers. Seniority suggests ownership of complex problems and a deep understanding of how design impacts business objectives.

Reporting Structure: The Senior Product Designer will likely report to a Design Lead, Head of Product Design, or a Director of Product. They will work within cross-functional product teams, collaborating closely with Product Managers and Engineering Leads responsible for specific product domains within the Ververica Unified Streaming Data Platform.

Operations Impact: The Senior Product Designer will directly influence the usability and adoption of Ververica's core platform products. By translating complex technical features into intuitive user experiences, they will enhance customer satisfaction, reduce onboarding friction for technical users, and contribute to the overall market competitiveness and perceived value of the platform. Effective design for data-driven applications is critical for enabling users to derive maximum value from the data processed by Ververica's solutions.

Growth Opportunities:

• Leadership in Design: Potential to grow into a Lead Product Designer or Design Manager role, taking on more strategic responsibilities and managing a team of designers.
• Specialization: Opportunity to deepen expertise in specific areas such as data visualization for complex systems, designing for developer tools, or advanced UX research for enterprise software.
• Cross-Functional Influence: Increased involvement in product strategy, contributing to roadmap decisions based on user insights and design expertise.
• Mentorship: Opportunity to mentor junior designers, sharing best practices and guiding their development within the company.
• Industry Expertise: Becoming a recognized expert in designing for real-time data platforms and complex technical applications.

📝 Enhancement Note: This analysis focuses on the "senior" aspect of the role, its impact on the product and business (operations impact), and clear pathways for career progression within a specialized tech company.

🌐 Work Environment

Office Type: Ververica GmbH operates with a hybrid work model. This typically means employees are expected to work from the Madrid office for a portion of the week, facilitating in-person collaboration, team meetings, and fostering a strong team culture, while also allowing for remote work days for focused individual tasks.

Office Location(s): The primary office location for this role is Madrid, Community of Madrid, Spain. This city offers a vibrant technological hub with access to talent and a good quality of life.

Workspace Context:

• Collaborative Spaces: The office environment is likely designed to encourage collaboration, with meeting rooms, breakout areas, and potentially open-plan workspaces suitable for design critiques and team discussions.
• Tools & Technology: Employees will have access to necessary hardware, software, and design tools (e.g., high-performance workstations, relevant design software, communication platforms) to perform their roles effectively.
• Cross-Functional Interaction: The hybrid model and team structure are designed to promote regular interaction with Product Managers, Engineers, and other designers, fostering a dynamic and integrated product development process.

Work Schedule: The standard work schedule is approximately 40 hours per week. The hybrid arrangement offers flexibility in managing workdays, allowing individuals to balance focused remote work with in-office collaboration and team activities. This structure supports the demands of agile development cycles while promoting a sustainable work-life balance.

📝 Enhancement Note: Emphasizing the hybrid nature of the work environment, the specific location in Madrid, and the collaborative aspects is key for attracting candidates who value both flexibility and in-person interaction.

📄 Application & Portfolio Review Process

Interview Process:

• Initial Screening: A brief call with a recruiter or hiring manager to assess initial fit, understand career aspirations, and review your resume and portfolio overview. Preparation: Be ready to articulate your experience with complex, data-driven products and your understanding of Ververica's market.
• Portfolio Presentation & Design Challenge: A more in-depth session where you present a curated selection of your work, focusing on 2-3 relevant case studies. This may be followed by a design exercise or discussion of a hypothetical design problem. Preparation: Select case studies that highlight your skills in dashboard design, workflow optimization, and designing for technical users. Be prepared to walk through your design process, decision-making, and the impact of your work. For the challenge, focus on process and problem-solving.
• Cross-Functional Interviews: Interviews with Product Managers and Engineering Leads to assess collaboration skills, technical understanding, and how you integrate into an agile team. Preparation: Prepare examples of successful cross-functional collaboration, how you translate technical constraints into design solutions, and how you handle feedback.
• Final Interview: Potentially with a senior leader (e.g., Head of Product, CTO) to discuss strategic alignment, culture fit, and overall candidacy. Preparation: Demonstrate a strong understanding of Ververica's business, product, and how design contributes to its success.

Portfolio Review Tips:

• Curate Selectively: Choose 2-3 of your strongest case studies that are most relevant to designing data-driven applications, dashboards, and workflows for technical users.
• Showcase Your Process: Clearly outline the problem, your role, the research conducted, design iterations, key decisions made, and the final outcome. Use visuals effectively.
• Quantify Impact: Wherever possible, use metrics or user feedback to demonstrate the success and impact of your design solutions (e.g., increased user engagement, reduced task completion time, improved data clarity).
• Highlight Technical User Empathy: Explain how you understood and addressed the specific needs and pain points of engineers and technical professionals.
• Design System Integration: If applicable, show how you've worked with or contributed to design systems, emphasizing consistency and scalability.
• Be Concise and Clear: Present your work in a clear, digestible format, avoiding jargon where possible, and be prepared to elaborate on any aspect during the interview.

Challenge Preparation:

• Understand the Context: If given a design challenge, ensure you fully understand the problem statement, the target user, and any constraints.
• Focus on Process: For a Senior role, interviewers are often more interested in how you approach a problem than just the final solution. Outline your steps, assumptions, and reasoning.
• Communicate Clearly: Articulate your thought process verbally and visually. Practice explaining your ideas concisely.
• Consider Trade-offs: Acknowledge potential trade-offs and alternative solutions. This demonstrates critical thinking.

📝 Enhancement Note: This section provides actionable advice for preparing for the interview process, specifically tailored to a Senior Product Designer role involving complex, data-intensive products, and emphasizing portfolio presentation strategies relevant to operations-adjacent roles.

🛠 Tools & Technology Stack

Primary Tools:

• Design & Prototyping Software: Proficiency expected in industry-standard tools such as Figma, Sketch, Adobe XD, InVision, or similar for wireframing, UI design, and interactive prototyping.
• Design Systems Management: Experience with tools or methodologies for managing and contributing to design systems (e.g., Zeroheight, Storybook integration with design tools).
• Collaboration Platforms: Familiarity with tools like Slack, Microsoft Teams, or similar for team communication and project coordination.

Analytics & Reporting:

• Analytics Tools: Exposure to product analytics platforms like Google Analytics, Amplitude, Mixpanel, or Pendo for understanding user behavior and validating design decisions.
• Data Visualization Tools: Familiarity with tools or principles related to data visualization, as the products involve complex data presentation. This could include knowledge of libraries like D3.js or understanding of best practices for charting and graphing complex datasets.

CRM & Automation (Indirect Relevance):

• While not a direct CRM/Automation role, understanding how user data flows and is managed within systems that might integrate with Ververica's platform (e.g., cloud platforms, data pipelines) is beneficial. Experience with tools that manage data and user workflows (even if not CRM-specific) like Jira for task management and agile processes is expected.

📝 Enhancement Note: This section lists typical tools for a Senior Product Designer, with a particular emphasis on those relevant to data visualization and understanding user behavior in complex software environments, reflecting the nature of Ververica's products.

👥 Team Culture & Values

Operations Values:

• Precision & Reliability: Reflecting the nature of data processing and enterprise software, a high value is placed on accuracy, attention to detail, and delivering reliable solutions.
• Technical Excellence: A culture that deeply respects and fosters technical expertise, encouraging continuous learning and innovation in complex domains like distributed systems and data engineering.
• Collaboration & Openness: Encouragement of open communication, knowledge sharing, and collaborative problem-solving across product, engineering, and design functions.
• User Focus: A commitment to understanding and serving the needs of technical users, ensuring that complex functionalities are made accessible and usable.
• Efficiency & Scalability: A drive to build and design solutions that are not only functional but also efficient, scalable, and maintainable for enterprise-level deployment.

Collaboration Style:

• Cross-Functional Integration: Design is seen as an integral part of the product development team, working hand-in-hand with product management and engineering from ideation through to deployment.
• Iterative Feedback Loops: A culture that embraces regular feedback, design critiques, and iterative refinement of designs based on input from various stakeholders and user testing.
• Knowledge Sharing: Encouragement of sharing best practices, design patterns, and learnings, particularly concerning data visualization and complex system design, often facilitated through internal presentations or design system updates.

📝 Enhancement Note: Values and collaboration styles are inferred based on the company's industry (enterprise data platforms), its origin (Apache Flink ecosystem), and the nature of the role (senior designer for complex technical products), emphasizing precision, technical depth, and collaborative problem-solving.

⚡ Challenges & Growth Opportunities

Challenges:

• Complexity of Data: Designing intuitive interfaces for highly complex, real-time data streams and distributed systems requires deep understanding and innovative problem-solving.
• Technical User Persona: Catering to the specific needs and expectations of experienced engineers and data professionals, who often prioritize functionality and efficiency over aesthetics.
• Bridging Technical & Design Gaps: Effectively translating highly technical concepts and capabilities into user-friendly designs, ensuring clarity without oversimplification.
• Evolving Technology Landscape: Keeping pace with rapid advancements in data processing, cloud technologies, and user interface best practices to ensure designs remain cutting-edge and relevant.
• Balancing Standardization and Flexibility: Contributing to a design system that provides consistency while allowing for the necessary customization and configurability of enterprise-grade products.

Learning & Development Opportunities:

• Deep Dive into Data Technologies: Opportunity to gain significant expertise in streaming data platforms, distributed systems, and the Apache Flink ecosystem.
• Advanced Data Visualization: Enhance skills in presenting complex, high-velocity data in clear, actionable formats for technical audiences.
• Enterprise-Level Design Strategy: Develop strategic thinking around designing for scalability, performance, and complex enterprise workflows.
• Mentorship & Leadership: Potential to mentor junior designers and take on leadership roles in design initiatives as the company grows.
• Industry Conferences & Training: Access to relevant industry events and specialized training in areas like UX research for technical products, data visualization, and cloud technologies.

📝 Enhancement Note: Challenges and growth opportunities are derived from the inherent nature of designing for complex, technical B2B SaaS products in a rapidly evolving tech landscape.

💡 Interview Preparation

Strategy Questions:

• "Describe a time you designed a complex data dashboard. What were the key challenges, and how did you address them?"
  • Preparation: Focus on your process: understanding the data, identifying key metrics, user needs, interaction design for data exploration, and how you validated your design. Highlight how you ensured clarity and usability for technical users.
• "How do you approach translating highly technical product features into user-friendly interfaces?"
  • Preparation: Discuss your methods for understanding technical concepts (e.g., collaborating with engineers, reading documentation), simplifying information architecture, and using visual cues or metaphors effectively. Provide an example from your portfolio.
• "Imagine you need to design a new workflow for managing real-time data pipelines. Walk us through your initial design process."
  • Preparation: Outline your steps: defining the problem, user research/empathy, defining key user actions, sketching/wireframing, prototyping, and iteration. Emphasize how you would ensure the workflow is efficient and handles potential errors gracefully for technical users.
• "How do you contribute to or utilize a design system, especially when designing for complex enterprise software?"
  • Preparation: Discuss your understanding of design system principles (consistency, scalability, efficiency). Provide examples of how you've used existing components or suggested new ones, and how you ensure designs align with the system's goals.

Company & Culture Questions:

• "What interests you about Ververica and our focus on streaming data platforms?"
  • Preparation: Research Ververica, Apache Flink, and the company's mission. Connect your passion for data-driven design and complex systems to their work.
• "How do you collaborate with product managers and engineers in an agile environment?"
  • Preparation: Provide specific examples of successful collaboration, how you handle differing opinions, and how you ensure design is integrated early and often in the development cycle.
• "How do you ensure your designs are both usable for technical users and align with business objectives?"
  • Preparation: Discuss your approach to balancing user needs with product strategy, and how you use data or research to inform decisions that impact both.

Portfolio Presentation Strategy:

• Tell a Story: For each case study, frame it as a narrative: the challenge, your role, your process, the solutions you designed, and the impact.
• Focus on Process, Not Just Pixels: Explain why you made certain design decisions. Show your exploration, iterations, and how you arrived at the final solution.
• Highlight Data & Technical Aspects: Emphasize projects where you designed for complex data, dashboards, or technical workflows. Show how you simplified complexity.
• Demonstrate Impact: Use metrics, user feedback, or business outcomes to showcase the value your designs delivered.
• Be Prepared for Deep Dives: Anticipate detailed questions about your technical choices, research methods, and problem-solving approaches.

📝 Enhancement Note: These interview questions and preparation tips are tailored for a Senior Product Designer role at a company like Ververica, focusing on the unique challenges of designing for complex data systems and technical users, and emphasizing process, collaboration, and impact.

📌 Application Steps

To apply for this Senior Product Designer position:

• Submit your application through the provided link on Workable.
• Portfolio Customization: Tailor your portfolio to specifically highlight 2-3 case studies demonstrating your experience with data-driven applications, complex dashboards, and workflows for technical users. Emphasize your design process, problem-solving skills, and the impact of your work.
• Resume Optimization: Ensure your resume clearly articulates your 6+ years of experience in Product Design/UX, using keywords from the job description (e.g., data-driven applications, design systems, agile, technical users). Quantify achievements where possible.
• Interview Preparation: Practice articulating your design process, collaboration style, and how you approach complex technical challenges. Prepare specific examples for behavioral and situational questions.
• Company Research: Familiarize yourself with Ververica GmbH, their products (especially the Unified Streaming Data Platform), the Apache Flink ecosystem, and their market position. Understand their mission and values to articulate your interest effectively.

⚠️ Important Notice: This enhanced job description includes AI-generated insights and operations industry-standard assumptions. All details should be verified directly with the hiring organization before making application decisions.

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