Senior Product Designer

📍 Job Overview

Job Title: Senior Product Designer

Company: Commonwealth Bank

Location: Eveleigh, NSW - 1 Locomotive Street, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Job Type: Full time, Temporary (12-month Fixed Term)

Category: Product Design / UX/UI Design

Date Posted: 2026-08-26

Experience Level: 5-10 years

Remote Status: Hybrid (50% office attendance)

🚀 Role Summary

• Lead end-to-end product design initiatives, from discovery and research through to UX/UI design and delivery, within a customer-focused product team.

• Craft seamless, accessible, and impactful digital and staff experiences for millions of Australians, driving innovation in financial services.

• Collaborate closely with Product Managers, Engineers, and Business SMEs in an agile environment to translate customer needs into elegant, scalable solutions.

• Champion customer-centricity and advocate for best-in-class user experience, ensuring products are usable and desirable for all customers.

📝 Enhancement Note: While the title is "Senior Product Designer," the responsibilities and required experience suggest a role that heavily interfaces with GTM and operations by focusing on the user experience of both external customers and internal staff. This role requires a strong understanding of how design impacts adoption, efficiency, and overall business objectives within a regulated industry like financial services. The emphasis on "staff experiences" and "service design" indicates a need for operations-minded thinking in the design process.

📈 Primary Responsibilities

• Lead comprehensive discovery work to uncover customer problems, identify strategic opportunities, and inform product strategy through in-depth research, interactive workshops, and co-design sessions.

• Translate research insights and hypotheses into compelling concepts, detailed user flows, and functional prototypes, utilizing exploration and ideation techniques to validate assumptions and build stakeholder confidence in recommended solutions.

• Develop engaging wireframes, interactive prototypes, and high-fidelity UX/UI designs that strictly adhere to the company's design system, ensuring solutions are both desirable for customers and technically feasible for engineering teams to achieve key business metrics.

• Apply sophisticated systems thinking and design thinking methodologies to shape offerings that proactively anticipate the needs of customers within a complex digital/physical service environment, as well as the internal staff who serve them.

• Foster close collaboration with a diverse array of stakeholders, including Product Managers, Engineers, Content Designers, Accessibility Managers, and Legal/Risk teams, throughout the entire agile product development lifecycle.

• Act as a primary advocate for customer-centricity and best-in-class user experience, embedding these principles at every stage of product discovery and development, with a particular focus on ensuring products and services are universally usable through robust accessibility and inclusivity standards.

• Contribute significantly to product strategy and roadmap discussions by grounding all decisions in a deep understanding of customer insights, design thinking principles, user behavior data, and a proactive "test and learn" mindset.

• Facilitate and actively participate in design critiques, collaborative workshops, and agile ceremonies, providing and receiving constructive, actionable feedback aligned with established design standards to drive continuous improvement in product outcomes.

• Play a key role in the evolution and enhancement of the company's design system, contributing to its consistency, scalability, and overall efficiency across product portfolios.

• Measure and validate the impact of launched products and features, employing a combination of qualitative and quantitative insights to inform iterative improvements and optimize user experiences.

📝 Enhancement Note: The responsibilities highlight a strong emphasis on the entire product lifecycle, from initial research and strategy to post-launch iteration. This is crucial for operations professionals who need to understand how design decisions impact user adoption, process efficiency, and ultimately, business outcomes. The mention of "staff experiences" directly links this design role to internal operations and workflow optimization.

🎓 Skills & Qualifications

Education: While specific degree requirements are not listed, a Bachelor's or Master's degree in Design, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Psychology, or a related field is typically expected for a Senior Product Designer role. Equivalent practical experience will also be considered.

Experience: A minimum of 5-10 years of proven experience in end-to-end digital product design, with a significant portion spent working within cross-functional product teams in a fast-paced agile environment.

Required Skills:

• Demonstrated experience leading both discovery and delivery phases of product development, effectively engaging with customers, product management, and engineering stakeholders.

• Profound understanding and practical application of human-centered design methodologies within agile frameworks.

• Exceptional interaction and UI design skills, characterized by meticulous attention to detail and a high standard of craft.

• Proven experience designing for complex systems, services, or platforms, rather than focusing solely on isolated features.

• Strong comprehension of principles and interaction models for designing responsible, scalable, and ethical AI-powered experiences.

• Excellent collaboration and communication skills, adept at both whiteboarding with engineers and presenting strategic concepts to executive leadership.

• Proficiency in modern design and prototyping tools, such as Figma and Adobe Creative Suite.

• Foundational understanding of front-end technologies, including HTML, CSS, component-based architecture, and design tokens.

• Demonstrated ability to navigate ambiguity and complexity, effectively balancing user needs with critical business objectives.

• Experience with metrics-driven product development, including running experiments, A/B testing, and analyzing usage funnel data.

• A robust portfolio showcasing end-to-end product design thinking, exceptional craft, and demonstrable, measurable impact on user outcomes and business goals. Preferred Skills:

• Prior experience within the Financial Services industry or in sectors combining physical and digital service delivery.

• A strong inclination and demonstrated ability for mentoring junior designers and contributing to the broader design craft and community within an organization.

📝 Enhancement Note: The requirements emphasize a blend of strategic thinking, hands-on design execution, and cross-functional collaboration, which are all critical for operations roles. The mention of "metrics-driven product development" and "AI-powered experiences" points to the need for data literacy and an understanding of emerging technologies, which are increasingly important in operations.

📊 Process & Systems Portfolio Requirements

Portfolio Essentials:

• A comprehensive portfolio demonstrating end-to-end product design capabilities, from initial concept and user research through to final UI implementation and post-launch analysis.

• Case studies that clearly articulate the problem statement, the design process undertaken, the rationale behind key decisions, and the measurable impact of the solutions.

• Examples of work that showcase an understanding of complex systems, service design principles, and the ability to maintain consistency with established design systems.

• Evidence of collaboration with cross-functional teams (Product, Engineering, Research) and how design decisions were influenced by or influenced these partnerships.

• Demonstrations of problem-solving skills, particularly in complex or ambiguous situations, and how design thinking was applied to achieve desired outcomes. Process Documentation:

• Examples of how user research findings and customer insights were translated into actionable design strategies and product requirements.

• Documentation of iterative design processes, including wireframing, prototyping, user testing, and feedback incorporation to refine solutions.

• Illustrations of how design decisions were validated through data analysis, A/B testing, or other quantitative metrics to demonstrate business impact and ROI.

• Evidence of contribution to or utilization of design systems, showing an understanding of scalability, consistency, and component-based design.

📝 Enhancement Note: For a Senior Product Designer role, the portfolio is paramount. It serves as a tangible representation of their ability to execute on the responsibilities outlined. Operations professionals often need to demonstrate process improvement and data-driven decision-making, and this portfolio requirement directly aligns with showcasing those capabilities through design projects.

💵 Compensation & Benefits

Salary Range: Based on industry benchmarks for Senior Product Designers in Sydney, Australia, with 5-10 years of experience and working for a large financial institution, a competitive salary range is estimated between AUD $140,000 - $190,000 per annum. This range accounts for the role's seniority, the fixed-term nature, and the strategic importance of the Wealth & Private domain.

Benefits:

• Coaching: Access to professional coaching to support career development and skill enhancement.

• Learning Budgets: Allocated funds for continuous learning, professional development courses, conferences, and certifications relevant to product design and financial services.

• Design Community Support: Opportunities to engage with and learn from a broader community of designers within Commonwealth Bank, fostering knowledge sharing and best practices.

• Fixed-Term Contract: A 12-month contract providing a focused period of impactful work.

• Hybrid Work Model: Flexibility with a blend of in-office collaboration and remote work.

• Employee Benefits: Access to Commonwealth Bank's comprehensive employee benefits program, which may include health insurance, superannuation contributions, staff banking concessions, and other wellness programs.

Working Hours: Standard full-time working hours are expected, typically around 40 hours per week. The hybrid model allows for some flexibility in scheduling, with 50% of time to be spent in the office.

📝 Enhancement Note: Salary estimates are based on publicly available data for similar roles in Sydney, Australia, considering the company's profile as a major financial institution. The benefits listed are directly from the job description, with added context for operations professionals who value structured development and a supportive work environment.

🎯 Team & Company Context

🏢 Company Culture

Industry: Financial Services (Banking). Commonwealth Bank operates within a highly regulated and competitive sector, requiring a strong focus on customer trust, security, innovation, and compliance. This context demands rigorous design processes that balance user needs with stringent business and regulatory requirements.

Company Size: Large Enterprise (Commonwealth Bank Group is one of Australia's largest corporations). This size implies established processes, significant resources, and a broad impact, but also potential for bureaucracy. For operations professionals, it means opportunities for large-scale impact and structured career paths, but also the need for adaptability within a large organizational framework.

Founded: 1911. With over a century of history, Commonwealth Bank has a deep-rooted presence in the Australian financial landscape, undergoing significant digital transformation and adaptation over the decades. This history suggests stability and a commitment to long-term customer relationships.

Team Structure:

• The Senior Product Designer will be part of the Product Design Chapter within the Wealth & Private domain. This implies a specialized team focused on a specific business area, likely with its own set of Product Managers, Engineers, and SMEs.

• The "Chapter" model suggests a functional grouping where designers from different product teams collaborate, share best practices, and contribute to the overall design craft, potentially reporting to a Design Lead or Head of Design.

• Collaboration will be inherently cross-functional, working closely with Product Managers, Engineers, Content Designers, Accessibility Managers, and Legal/Risk teams within an agile squad structure for specific product initiatives. Methodology:

• Agile Environment: Product development follows agile methodologies, emphasizing iterative cycles, rapid feedback, and continuous improvement.

• Human-Centered Design: The core approach is deeply rooted in understanding and addressing customer needs through research, empathy, and user testing.

• Systems Thinking & Design Thinking: These methodologies are applied to tackle complex problems and create holistic solutions that consider the entire user journey and ecosystem.

• Metrics-Driven Development: Decisions are informed by data, including user behavior analytics, A/B testing results, and key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure impact and guide iterations.

• Test and Learn Mindset: A culture that encourages experimentation and learning from both successes and failures to optimize product offerings.

Company Website: https://www.commbank.com.au/

📝 Enhancement Note: Understanding CBA's culture as a large, established financial institution is key. Operations professionals thrive in structured environments but must also be adaptable to change and innovation initiatives. The "Chapter" model is a modern organizational approach that fosters specialized skill development and community, which is beneficial for continuous learning.

📈 Career & Growth Analysis

Operations Career Level: This role is positioned at a Senior level within the Product Design function. It signifies a high degree of autonomy, responsibility for leading design initiatives, and the expectation to influence product strategy and outcomes. For operations, this translates to a role that requires strategic thinking, problem-solving, and the ability to drive significant improvements through design, impacting both customer and internal operational efficiency.

Reporting Structure: The Senior Product Designer will likely report to a Design Lead or Manager within the Wealth & Private domain's Product Design Chapter. They will work within agile squads, collaborating daily with Product Managers and Engineers, and interacting with various other business units (e.g., Legal, Risk, Content).

Operations Impact: The role's impact extends beyond aesthetics. By designing user-friendly interfaces and efficient workflows for both customers and internal staff, this Senior Product Designer directly influences:

• Customer Adoption & Engagement: Seamless experiences encourage product usage and customer loyalty.

• Operational Efficiency: Intuitive internal tools reduce training time, minimize errors, and streamline processes for bank staff.

• Revenue Generation: Improved customer journeys can lead to increased product uptake and retention.

• Risk Mitigation: Clear, accessible design can reduce misinterpretations and support compliance efforts.

Growth Opportunities:

• Leadership Development: Potential to lead larger design projects, mentor junior designers, and contribute to design strategy and process improvements within the chapter.

• Domain Specialization: Deepen expertise within the Wealth & Private banking sector, understanding its unique customer needs and operational complexities.

• Cross-Functional Skill Enhancement: Gain deeper insights into product management, engineering processes, and business operations through close collaboration.

• Formal Learning: Utilize allocated learning budgets for advanced courses in UX research, service design, AI design, or financial technology.

• Internal Mobility: Opportunities to transition into other design-focused roles, product management, or specialized operational strategy roles within the broader Commonwealth Bank Group.

📝 Enhancement Note: The growth potential is significant, moving beyond pure design execution into strategic influence and leadership. For operations candidates, this offers a pathway to leverage design skills in driving broader business process improvements and strategic initiatives within a large organization.

🌐 Work Environment

Office Type: The role is based in Sydney with a hybrid work arrangement, requiring 50% office attendance. This suggests a modern office environment designed to foster collaboration, innovation, and connection among teams, while also allowing for focused work. Commonwealth Bank's offices are typically professional, well-equipped, and designed to support a large workforce.

Office Location(s): The primary office location is 1 Locomotive Street, Eveleigh, NSW. This is a well-known innovation hub and workspace in Sydney, likely offering excellent facilities and a collaborative atmosphere. Other Sydney CBD locations might also be relevant for different teams or meetings.

Workspace Context:

• Collaborative Spaces: Offices are likely equipped with meeting rooms, breakout areas, and whiteboarding facilities to support the agile and design thinking methodologies used.

• Technology & Tools: Access to the necessary design software (Figma, Adobe Creative Suite), hardware, and potentially internal collaboration tools and platforms.

• Team Interaction: The hybrid model ensures opportunities for face-to-face interaction with colleagues, fostering team cohesion, spontaneous idea generation, and effective communication within the agile squads and the broader design chapter.

Work Schedule: The role is full-time, with a hybrid model requiring approximately 2 days per week in the office. This structure aims to balance the benefits of in-person collaboration with the flexibility of remote work, allowing designers to manage their time effectively while ensuring team alignment and engagement.

📝 Enhancement Note: The hybrid nature of the role is a significant factor for work-life balance and collaboration. For operations roles, understanding the physical workspace context can help in assessing how team dynamics and information flow occur, which is crucial for process implementation and efficiency.

📄 Application & Portfolio Review Process

Interview Process:

• Initial Screening: A review of your CV and portfolio to assess your experience and alignment with the role requirements.

• Hiring Manager/Team Interview: A discussion focused on your background, experience, and understanding of product design principles. This may include behavioral questions related to collaboration and problem-solving.

• Design Challenge/Portfolio Presentation: A critical stage where you will present your portfolio, discussing your process, decisions, and the impact of your work. This may involve a specific design exercise or a deep dive into past projects. Prepare to discuss how your design thinking translates into measurable business outcomes and operational efficiencies.

• Stakeholder Interviews: Meetings with potential colleagues, including Product Managers, Engineers, and potentially other designers, to assess cultural fit, collaboration style, and your ability to work within an agile team.

• Final Interview: Potentially with a senior leader to discuss your strategic vision and long-term fit within the organization.

Portfolio Review Tips:

• Curate Strategically: Select 3-4 projects that best showcase your end-to-end design process, problem-solving skills, and measurable impact, particularly those relevant to complex systems or financial services.

• Tell a Story: For each project, clearly articulate the problem, your role, the process you followed (discovery, ideation, design, testing, iteration), key decisions, and the quantifiable results achieved. Focus on how your design decisions solved problems and delivered value.

• Highlight Operations Impact: If possible, include projects where your design influenced operational efficiency, reduced errors, improved staff workflows, or had a clear ROI. Quantify this impact with data.

• Showcase Craft and Systems Thinking: Demonstrate your UI/UX skills, attention to detail, and ability to design within or contribute to a design system. Explain how your designs scale and remain consistent.

• Be Prepared for Questions: Anticipate questions about your design choices, how you handled constraints, your collaboration style, and your understanding of user research and data analysis.

Challenge Preparation:

• Understand the Context: If a design challenge is provided, take time to understand the problem space, target users, and business objectives.

• Focus on Process: Demonstrate your design thinking process. It's not just about the final solution, but how you arrive at it. Document your assumptions, research, ideation, and testing.

• Consider Operational Implications: Think about how your proposed solution might impact internal processes, staff training, or customer support.

• Presentation Skills: Practice presenting your work clearly, concisely, and confidently. Be ready to articulate your rationale and answer questions effectively.

📝 Enhancement Note: The application and interview process for design roles, especially senior ones, heavily relies on the portfolio. For operations professionals, this is an opportunity to frame design challenges through a lens of efficiency, scalability, and measurable impact, aligning their skills with business objectives.

🛠 Tools & Technology Stack

Primary Tools:

• Figma: Expected to be the primary tool for UI design, wireframing, prototyping, and collaboration. Proficiency in creating components, variants, and interactive prototypes is essential.

• Adobe Creative Suite: Familiarity with tools like Photoshop and Illustrator may be required for asset creation or specific design tasks.

• Prototyping Tools: Beyond Figma's capabilities, experience with tools like InVision, Axure, or similar for more complex prototyping or user testing might be beneficial.

Analytics & Reporting:

• User Analytics Platforms: Familiarity with tools such as Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics, or internal dashboards for tracking user behavior, conversion funnels, and feature adoption.

• A/B Testing Tools: Experience with platforms like Optimizely, VWO, or in-house A/B testing frameworks to validate design hypotheses and measure impact.

• Data Visualization Tools: Basic understanding of how data is presented in dashboards (e.g., Tableau, Power BI) to interpret performance metrics.

CRM & Automation:

• While not a direct CRM role, an understanding of how design impacts user journeys within CRM systems (e.g., Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics) or customer service platforms used by bank staff can be advantageous.

• Knowledge of how design specifications translate into front-end development (HTML, CSS, design tokens) is also expected, indicating a need for understanding the implementation pipeline.

📝 Enhancement Note: Proficiency in Figma and an understanding of the broader design and development toolchain are critical. For operations, understanding how design tools integrate with analytics and CRM systems helps in grasping the data flow and impact measurement capabilities of design initiatives.

👥 Team Culture & Values

Operations Values:

• Customer-Centricity: A foundational value that drives all design decisions, ensuring the primary focus is on meeting and exceeding customer needs.

• Collaboration: An emphasis on working effectively within cross-functional teams, valuing diverse perspectives and collective problem-solving.

• Excellence & Craft: A commitment to high standards in design execution, attention to detail, and delivering polished, effective solutions.

• Innovation & Continuous Improvement: A forward-thinking approach that embraces new ideas, technologies (like AI), and a "test and learn" mentality to constantly enhance user experiences and business outcomes.

• Accessibility & Inclusivity: A dedication to designing products and services that are usable by everyone, regardless of ability or background.

Collaboration Style:

• Cross-functional Integration: Designers are expected to be active participants in agile squads, working hand-in-hand with Product Managers and Engineers to ensure shared understanding and alignment from concept to delivery.

• Feedback Culture: A practice of open, constructive design critiques and workshops, where both giving and receiving feedback is valued for collective growth and product improvement.

• Knowledge Sharing: Encouraging the sharing of insights, best practices, and learnings across the design community and within product teams to elevate the overall design maturity of the organization.

📝 Enhancement Note: The cultural values emphasize a blend of user advocacy, collaborative teamwork, and a drive for quality and innovation. For operations professionals, these values translate into expectations around stakeholder management, process improvement, and a data-informed approach to problem-solving.

⚡ Challenges & Growth Opportunities

Challenges:

• Balancing Stakeholder Needs: Navigating the diverse requirements and priorities of various stakeholders (customers, product, engineering, legal, risk) within a complex financial services environment.

• Designing for Complex Systems: Creating intuitive experiences for intricate banking products and services that may involve both digital and physical touchpoints, and serve both customers and internal staff.

• Adopting New Technologies: Integrating emerging technologies like AI responsibly and effectively into user experiences while ensuring usability, ethical considerations, and scalability.

• Maintaining Design System Consistency: Ensuring that new features and products align with the established design system across a large organization, requiring strong communication and collaboration.

Learning & Development Opportunities:

• Advanced Design Skills: Opportunities to deepen expertise in areas like service design, interaction design for complex systems, AI-driven design, or specialized UX research techniques.

• Industry Exposure: Gaining hands-on experience within the financial services sector, understanding its unique challenges and opportunities.

• Leadership Mentorship: Learning from senior design leaders and potentially taking on mentorship roles for junior designers.

• Cross-functional Acumen: Developing a stronger understanding of product strategy, engineering constraints, and business operations through daily collaboration.

📝 Enhancement Note: The challenges highlight the complexity inherent in designing for a major financial institution. For operations professionals, these challenges are familiar territory, and the growth opportunities offer pathways to leverage design skills for strategic impact in areas like process optimization and customer journey enhancement.

💡 Interview Preparation

Strategy Questions:

• "Describe a time you led the discovery phase for a complex product. What methods did you use, and how did you translate insights into actionable product strategy?" (Focus on research methodologies, stakeholder alignment, and strategic output.)

• "How do you balance competing stakeholder needs (e.g., customer desires vs. business constraints vs. technical feasibility) when designing a solution? Provide a specific example." (Emphasize negotiation, prioritization, and finding win-win solutions.)

• "Walk us through a project where your design directly improved an operational process or workflow for internal staff. What was the impact, and how did you measure it?" (Highlight focus on internal efficiency, specific design choices, and quantifiable results.) Company & Culture Questions:

• "What interests you about Commonwealth Bank, and specifically the Wealth & Private domain?" (Show research into the company's mission, values, and the specific business area.)

• "How do you contribute to a customer-centric culture within a cross-functional team?" (Discuss advocacy, empathy, and how you bring the customer voice into discussions.)

• "Describe your experience with design systems. How do you ensure consistency, and how have you contributed to their evolution?" (Focus on scalability, collaboration, and practical application.) Portfolio Presentation Strategy:

• Structure Your Narrative: For each case study, clearly define the problem, your role, the process, your key contributions, the challenges faced, the solutions implemented, and the measurable outcomes.

• Quantify Impact: Use data wherever possible to demonstrate the success of your designs (e.g., increased conversion rates, reduced error rates, improved task completion times, increased user satisfaction scores).

• Showcase Process, Not Just Pixels: Explain your 'why' – the rationale behind your design decisions, supported by research, user feedback, or data.

• Highlight Collaboration: Discuss how you worked with Product Managers, Engineers, and other stakeholders, and how their input influenced your designs.

• Address Operations Relevance: If applicable, explicitly call out how your designs benefited operational efficiency, staff productivity, or risk management.

📝 Enhancement Note: Preparing for these questions and the portfolio review requires framing design challenges through an operational lens – focusing on efficiency, scalability, measurable impact, and cross-functional collaboration, which are core tenets of revenue and sales operations.

📌 Application Steps

To apply for this Senior Product Designer position:

• Submit your application through the provided link on the Commonwealth Bank careers portal.

• Curate Your Portfolio: Select 3-4 of your strongest end-to-end product design projects, emphasizing those with measurable impact, complex system design, or direct relevance to operational efficiency or financial services. Ensure your portfolio clearly articulates your process, decision-making, and results.

• Tailor Your CV: Highlight keywords and responsibilities that align with the job description, such as "human-centered design," "agile," "Figma," "systems thinking," "stakeholder management," and any experience in financial services or complex digital/physical service environments. Quantify achievements where possible.

• Prepare Your Presentation: Practice walking through your portfolio projects, focusing on storytelling, clear articulation of your design process, and demonstrating the measurable business and operational impact of your work. Be ready to discuss your approach to collaboration and problem-solving.

• Research Commonwealth Bank: Understand their mission, values, recent initiatives, and the specific context of the Wealth & Private domain. Prepare thoughtful questions about the team, culture, and the challenges of designing for their customer base.

⚠️ 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.