Department: Engineering
Location: Bristol, UK
Compensation: £45,000 - £60,000 / year
Description
We’re building the UK's next generation engineering powerhouse, providing critical technology that strengthens national security and resilience.
We specialise in turning advances in sensing, AI, and communications into operational capability for the edge, where connectivity may be degraded or denied. Our work focuses on accelerating the deployment of technology, improving decision‑making for frontline teams, and protecting people and critical assets in demanding environments.
Headquartered in Bristol, Rowden employs around 160 people and operates over 20,000 square feet of engineering and manufacturing facilities. We have a growing international footprint and are one of Europe’s fastest-growing engineering businesses.
About the role
You will join a growing digital design team responsible for shaping the user experience of software used in critical, real‑world contexts. This role offers the opportunity to help establish a design system from the ground up, setting foundations that will scale across multiple products and programmes. Working closely with designers, engineers, and product partners, you will ensure design quality, consistency, and usability for unique products that serve unique user needs.
As a UI Designer, you will support teams delivering mission‑critical tools where clarity, reliability, and usability truly matter. Projects are technically complex and user needs are often nuanced, but the impact is tangible and rewarding. The interfaces you help design will directly support people doing important work. This is a role for someone who values thoughtful design, collaboration, and building things that genuinely improve how people operate in high‑stakes situations.
Candidates must be eligible for SC Clearance
Key areas of responsibility
- Design end‑to‑end user experiences across applications, platforms, and human‑machine interfaces (HMIs) for secure, mission‑critical environments.
- Translate user needs and technical requirements into clear interactions, scalable components and high‑quality UI designs, including consideration of motion and responsive behaviour across devices (e.g. web to watch) and HMI contexts.
- Produce design outputs including user flows, wireframes, prototypes, and polished interfaces ready for implementation.
- Contribute to and evolve our design system. Review and consolidate existing interface designs to improve consistency, scalability, usability, and alignment with design system standards which you will iterate upon.
- Apply and uphold accessibility and inclusive design standards (e.g. EAA) within all design work.
- Collaborate closely with designers, product managers and engineers to deliver usable, feasible, and compliant solutions.
- Support research activities by applying insights, assisting with usability testing, and incorporating findings into design decisions.
- Iterate designs based on feedback, data, and testing within constrained or complex environments.
Key skills, experience and behaviours
Minimum qualifications
- Significant experience as a UI Designer, Product Designer, or UX/UI Designer.
- Strong portfolio demonstrating UI design craft, interaction design (including motion, responsive design, and HMI considerations), and structured problem solving.
- Experience contributing to design systems and maintaining visual and interaction consistency.
- Proficiency with modern design and prototyping tools (e.g. Figma or equivalent).
- Solid understanding of usability, accessibility, and human‑centred design principles.
- Experience working collaboratively with cross‑functional teams (product, engineering, research).
- Ability to design effectively within technical, operational, or regulatory constraints.
Preferred qualifications
- Experience working on complex, enterprise, or regulated systems (e.g. defence, government, infrastructure).
- Familiarity with design system scaling or adoption across teams/product.
- Exposure to user research methods and usability testing (planning, observing, or synthesising findings).
- Good understanding of front‑end implementation considerations.
- Experience working in environments with limited user access or sensitive data.
Character
- Represent user groups and their respective needs across the business, as well as UX/UI best practice.
- Ability to design with incomplete data, evolving requirements, or limited user access.
- Exercises a high degree of discretion and integrity when handling sensitive or classified information.
- Able to engage confidently with senior stakeholders, engineers and subject‑matter experts.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills - persuasive, clear, and credible across technical and commercial contexts.
- Demonstrates strong ethical awareness and adherence to research governance, consent, and data protection standards.
- Open to essential travel to meet with end users where applicable.
- And finally, you are passionate about people! You’ll have a huge opportunity to work with individuals operating in unique environments with unique perspectives.
Working at Rowden
We are committed to building a flexible, inclusive, and enabling company. Our aim is to create a diverse team of talented people with unique skills, experience, and backgrounds, so please apply and come as you are!
We also recognise the importance of flexible working and support this wherever we can. We typically operate a flexible, hybrid‑working model, with an average 3 days in the office each week (dependent on the role). We welcome the opportunity to discuss flexibility, part‑time working requirements and/or workplace adjustments with all our applicants.
Rowden is a Disability Confident Committed company, and we actively encourage people with disabilities and health conditions to apply for our roles. Please let us know your requirements early on so that we can make sure you have everything you need up front to help make the recruitment process and experience as easy as possible.
Finally, if you feel that you don’t meet all the criteria included above but have transferable skills and relevant experience, we’d still love to hear from you!
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