---
title: 'Director of Product Design at Referrals Only'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/director-of-product-design-referrals-only-cardiff-london-or-8ca0hy3vyc09'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-14'
---

# Director of Product Design at Referrals Only

- **Company:** Referrals Only
- **Location:** Cardiff London OR, United Kingdom
- **Work type:** remote
- **Posted:** 2026-07-29
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-14
- **Apply:** https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/monzoreferrals/jobs/8093980

## Job description

📍London / UK Remote | 💰 £140,000 - £165,000 + Equity + [Benefits](https://monzo.com/careers#benefits) ✨

⭐ Our Design team

We’re a team of 115+ Product Designers, User Researchers, and Brand Designers led by Chief Design Officer Vuokko Aro. We’re on a mission to make money work for everyone. Product Design is the largest discipline within the design organisation, with designers working in tight-knit squads alongside researchers, product managers, and engineers to solve real customer problems at scale.

We design for the “magic moments.” We’ve built a bank that feels deeply human, not just functional, shaping how millions of people experience money every day. Our product is our personality. We combine research, empathy, and craft to turn everyday interactions into memorable experiences.

Now, we’re entering our next phase of growth and looking for exceptional design leaders to help define not only Monzo’s future, but the future of banking itself. There’s significant opportunity to shape the product, influence the organisation, and leave a lasting mark on millions of customers.

🔎 About the role

We’re looking for a Director of Product Design to lead design across Payments, one of Monzo’s most important and fast-evolving multi-market business areas.

You’ll partner closely with senior leaders across Product and Engineering to shape strategy, set direction, and drive exceptional execution across your area. You’ll play a key role in influencing the direction of both the product and the broader customer experience.

You’ll lead and grow a team of Product Designers, helping them do the best work of their careers while strengthening design thinking, collaboration, and craft across Monzo. As a senior leader within the Design organisation, you’ll raise the quality bar and expand design’s impact, influence, and effectiveness across Monzo.

🔑 You’ll play a key role by...

- Setting the strategic direction and design vision for your area, inspiring teams to think bigger and bolder, whilst aligning with Monzo goals and mission.
- Partnering with the leadership team for your area to define priorities, shape roadmaps, and turn strategy into impactful execution.
- Building and nurturing a high-performing design team - investing in their growth, wellbeing, and long-term success.
- Maintaining an exceptional quality bar across all design work through clear feedback and coaching, helping designers and teams consistently deliver best-in-class experiences.
- Creating an environment where feedback is open, craft is celebrated, and design quality continues to evolve across the organisation.
- Acting as a champion for design at Monzo, influencing how design thinking shapes our products and culture.

🤩 We’d love to hear from you if...

- You’ve led design strategy and vision across complex product areas, helping teams navigate ambiguity and deliver meaningful customer and business impact.
- You’re comfortable operating at multiple altitudes, from defining long-term direction to driving high-quality execution.
- You build strong partnerships across Product, Engineering, Research and Commercial, and know how to influence senior stakeholders through clarity, insight, and craft.
- You have a strong point of view on product design and consistently raise the bar for quality, systems thinking, and customer experience.
- You’ve built and led high-performing design teams, creating environments where people can grow, do exceptional work, and have meaningful impact.
- You know how to scale design influence across an organisation, shaping product direction, ways of working, and culture beyond your immediate team.
- You’re energised by Monzo’s mission to make money work for everyone, and excited to help shape the next generation of payments experiences through thoughtful, magical and innovative design.

🙌 What’s in it for you

- 💰 £140,000 - £165,000 + Equity + Benefits
- ✈️ We’ll help you relocate to the UK
- ✅ We can sponsor your visa
- 📍 This role can be based in our London office, but we're open to distributed working within the UK (with ad hoc meetings in London)
- ⏰ Flexible working hours and trust-based work culture
- 📚 £1,000 annual learning budget for books, training, and conferences
- 🏡 Full remote setup support, including equipment and workspace essentials
- ➕ Plus lots more!

This process should take around 4-5 weeks - your schedule is really important to us, so we promise to be as flexible as possible!

We have some guidelines on using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to ace an application and interview at Monzo. [You can read them here](https://monzo.com/blog/the-ultimate-guide-on-using-ai-to-ace-an-interview-at-monzo).

We’ll only close this role once we have enough applications for the next stage. Please submit your application as soon as possible to make sure you don’t miss out.

## #LI-TR1

#LI-Remote

## About Referrals Only

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Marqeta is the world’s first modern card issuing platform, providing open APIs that enable businesses to create, manage, and scale customized payment card programs.
- **Entity Type**: Public (Ticker: MQ on NASDAQ)
- **Headquarters**: Oakland, California, USA
- **Founded**: 2010
- **Founders**: Jason Gardner (Founder & Executive Chairman)

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Financial Technology (Fintech) — Modern Card Issuing & Payment Solutions
- **Target customers**: B2B; serves a wide range of industries including digital banking, on-demand delivery, buy now, pay later, expense management, retail, and workforce payments. Customers include Square, DoorDash, and other high-growth fintech and enterprise companies.
- **Mission or purpose statement**: To simplify payments and enable any company to deliver delightful payment experiences natively, powering more flexible, engaging, and innovative payment products.

## Products & Services
- **Modern Card Issuing Platform (SaaS/API)**: Fully open API platform that allows developers to launch new credit and debit card programs with speed, flexibility, and scale. Supports instant wage access, embedded finance, and custom card products.
- **Compliance & Risk Management (Service)**: Integrated fraud detection, spend control, and compliance tools to ensure high levels of security and uptime.
- **Global Expansion Capabilities (Platform)**: Certified to operate in over 40 countries across the US, Europe, and Asia, enabling businesses to scale globally.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: As a public company, market cap fluctuates. As of mid-2026, Marqeta is a publicly traded company valued in the multi-billion dollar range (exact figure varies with market conditions).
- **Key Metric**: Annual Revenue — $383 billion+ in total volume processed in 2025; 80x volume growth since 2017; 99.99% platform uptime in 2025.
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Key customers include Square (Block), DoorDash, and other leading fintech and enterprise firms. Partners include issuing banks, networks (e.g., Visa, Mastercard), and card fulfillment providers.
- **Growth Signals**: Recognized as a CNBC Disruptor (top 50 in 2021 award); consistent expansion into new geographies (EU, UK, Asia); continued hiring across multiple departments and regions (US, Canada, UK).

## Competitive Advantages
- **First-mover & category leader**: Marqeta defined the modern card issuing category with its open API platform, giving it a decade-plus head start over competitors.
- **Scalability & reliability**: Proven track record of 99.99% uptime and handling massive transaction volumes (80x growth since 2017) — critical for enterprise customers.
- **Deep integration with major networks**: Pre-existing relationships with Visa, Mastercard, and issuing banks shorten time-to-market for customers.
- **Developer-first approach**: Open APIs and developer tools make it easy for engineering teams to build custom payment experiences quickly.

## Strategic Focus
- **Global expansion**: Continuing to expand its certified operations into new countries (currently 40+) to serve multinational customers.
- **Embedded finance & new use cases**: Driving adoption in instant wage access, embedded finance, and enterprise expense management.
- **AI & automation**: Investing in AI-powered fraud detection, risk management, and product automation (e.g., hiring for Principal Security Engineer, Product & AI; Lead Product Manager, Enterprise AI & Automation).
- **Platform stability & security**: Maintaining industry-leading uptime and security compliance as core differentiators.

## Why Work Here
- **Culture & values**: Marqeta emphasizes a culture of “Simplify and Innovate,” “Solve for the Customer,” “Do What’s Right,” “Make it Count,” and “Win as a Team.” Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) include BlackCard, HOLA, RepresentAsian, Desi, MQ-Proud, Vets@MQ, Women’s Group, Parents’ Group, and Marqetaglots.
- **Remote/hybrid policy**: Many roles are remote (US, Canada, UK), with some positions based in Oakland, CA or London, UK. The company supports flexible work arrangements.
- **Notable perks & engineering culture**: Fast-paced, purpose-driven environment; strong focus on developer experience and open APIs; opportunities to work on cutting-edge payment infrastructure at massive scale. The company invests heavily in early career talent and internal mobility.
- **Award-winning workplace**: Recognized as a top workplace (e.g., CNBC Disruptor) and offers a collaborative, inclusive environment.

## Sources
1. [Marqeta About Us](https://www.marqeta.com/company/about-us)
2. [Marqeta Careers Page](https://www.marqeta.com/company/careers)
3. [Marqeta Homepage](https://www.marqeta.com/)
4. [Greenhouse Job Board](http://job-boards.greenhouse.io/marqeta)
5. [MQ Referrals Job Board](https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/mqreferrals/jobs/7743043)

## Other roles at Referrals Only

- [Data Science Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/data-science-manager-referrals-only-cardiff-london-or-qy9svbyf8q50) — Cardiff London OR, United Kingdom
- [Product Manager, Subscriptions](https://feeny.ai/job/product-manager-subscriptions-referrals-only-barcelona-0jkx6zdsjnj7) — Barcelona, Spain
- [Fraud Compliance Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/fraud-compliance-manager-referrals-only-united-kingdom-qpzb7bmcbgxt) — United Kingdom
- [Fraud Investigator, Overnight Team](https://feeny.ai/job/fraud-investigator-overnight-team-referrals-only-united-kingdom-weayv59k72r1) — United Kingdom
- [Lead Market Researcher](https://feeny.ai/job/lead-market-researcher-referrals-only-cardiff-london-or-83qyn2ncq2qk) — Cardiff London OR, United Kingdom
- [Chief of Staff, Group CFO](https://feeny.ai/job/chief-of-staff-group-cfo-referrals-only-london-fg8xem42f7fh) — London, United Kingdom
- [Senior Product Manager - Growth](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-product-manager-growth-referrals-only-london-x8w3pax4qj7r) — London, United Kingdom
- [Staff Backend Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/staff-backend-engineer-referrals-only-cardiff-london-or-6w1n8z0gktm9) — Cardiff London OR, United Kingdom
- [Senior Backend Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-backend-engineer-referrals-only-cardiff-london-or-0weyav3xnjw9) — Cardiff London OR, United Kingdom
- [Backend Engineer III](https://feeny.ai/job/backend-engineer-iii-referrals-only-cardiff-london-or-awnc2afx215n) — Cardiff London OR, United Kingdom