---
title: 'Lead Brand Designer at Referrals Only'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/lead-brand-designer-referrals-only-london-cayyfghxrfqk'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-11-02'
---

# Lead Brand Designer at Referrals Only

- **Company:** Referrals Only
- **Location:** London, United Kingdom
- **Posted:** 2026-10-15
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-11-02
- **Apply:** https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/monzoreferrals/jobs/8267489

## Job description

📍London (Hybrid) | 💰£75,000 - £95,000 + Incentive Awards tied to your performance + [Benefits](https://monzo.com/careers/) |  [Hear from the team](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U62l09nB0M4) ✨

⭐Our Design Team

We’re a team of 115+ designers, researchers, and brand experts led by Chief Design Officer Vuokko Aro. We’re on a mission to make money work for everyone.

We’re seeking an experienced Lead Brand Designer with a strong portfolio in branding, art direction and typography.

In this role, as part of a digital-first team, you’ll shape Monzo’s visual identity, deliver high-quality design solutions aligned with strategic goals, and drive innovative ideas as a conceptual thinker. Your designs will combine creativity and vision, ensuring they’re both compelling and rooted in strong concepts.

As part of our dynamic internal creative studio, you’ll collaborate with designers and writers, exchanging feedback and raising design standards. Working closely with the Creative Director, you’ll ensure consistency and evolve the Monzo brand by partnering with product designers, marketing teams, and external agencies.

Key projects include refining brand guidelines, developing motion storyboards, managing production and print, creating campaign assets, collaborating on web designs and product designs, and elevating internal design projects.

🔑You’ll play a key role by...

- Creative Leadership.  Leading and overseeing end-to-end projects, from ideation to execution, working collaboratively with cross-functional teams, including marketing, product design, and engineers.
- People management. You will need management skills to manage a small team of designers, by guiding and supporting them with our internal leveling frameworks.
- Mentoring and providing guidance to designers, fostering a collaborative and productive team environment. Run design critiques and help others navigate projects with cohesive and thoughtful feedback.
- Brand Guardian: Guide external agency partners on all things design and creative concepts.
- Brand Design. Develop, evolve and maintain brand identities, ensuring consistency across all touchpoints.
- Hands-On Design: Figma FIRST. Roll up your sleeves and contribute directly to the design work, whether it’s crafting a standout campaign, refining our typography, or animating assets.
- Typography. Utilize expert knowledge of typography to create visually appealing and readable designs.
- Collaboration and Communication. Work closely with cross-functional teams, including marketing, product development, and project management, to deliver cohesive design solutions.
- Creatively concept art direction and motion for in-app experiences with product teams.

🤩 We’d love to hear from you if…

- You have a proven track record in design roles, with a strong portfolio demonstrating branding, art direction, product design, advertising campaigns and typography.
- You have experience in managing designers and leading design projects.
- You have strong typography skills.
- You demonstrate proficiency in design software such as Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects), Figma is a must. Motion skills, 3D programs, Ai toolings,  are a plus.
- You have excellent communication skills and the ability to articulate design concepts to both internal teams and senior management.
- You have strong stakeholder management skills.
- You're a creative problem solver who can manage multiple projects simultaneously and balance competing priorities.
- You're curious about AI tools and how they can enhance the creative process, ideally with some hands-on experience using them in your design work.
- You have experience in fast-paced tech startups or creative agencies working on global brands.
- You have experience in additional areas like web design, print design, storyboarding, art direction, film, and illustration.
- You’re obsessed with strategically designing within a brand, and have strong skills with evolving within a brand guideline.
- You have strong motion ideation and storyboarding skills.

🙌What’s in it for you

💰£75,000 - £95,000 + Incentive Awards tied to your performance

⏰We offer flexible working hours and trust you to work enough hours to do your job well, and at times that suit you and your team.

📚£1,000 learning budget each year to use on books, training courses and conferences.

🏡We will set you up to work from home; all employees are given Macbooks and for fully remote workers we will provide extra support for your work-from-home setup.

➕ Plus lots more!

🌈 The application journey has 3 key steps

30-minute call with our Recruiter, Tom

1-hour craft interview where you’ll present a single case study to 2 members of our Brand Design team.

1-hour interview covering values & ways of working.

To help us understand your skills and experience, please include both your CV and a portfolio showcasing your work. We'd particularly love to see examples of projects you've led from start to finish, with a clear explanation of your individual role, responsibilities and contributions.

This process should take around 4 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.

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)

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