Advancing Product Designer

Position Title: Advancing Product Designer

Direct Line Reporting: Product Design Lead

Industry Sector: Information Technology

Gross Salary Structure: Kshs. 60,000

Location: Nairobi, Kenya

Role Overview

Zeraki is seeking an analytical, user-centric Advancing Product Designer to join our internal product design collective. Operating within a high-synergy product trio alongside a Product Manager and Tech Lead, your primary objective is to own feature architectures end-to-end—from initial problem framing and field discovery through to developer handoff and post-release usability reviews. This position bridges empathetic field research with highly structured digital system design; you will operate inside our advanced Discovery v3.2 process, using the Zeraki Design System to build mobile-first interfaces tailored for low-bandwidth and shared-device environments. Guided by the Product Design Lead, the role offers a clear professional evolution track through our established performance framework, making it ideal for a rising design professional who wants to build digital products that transform African education.

Areas of Accountability

User Discovery & Evidence-Driven Research

• Conduct structured user interviews, contextual observations, and field usability tests with senior mentorship to decode the needs of school administrators, students, and parents.
• Build and preserve an active, live assumption log per project, systematically transforming field evidence into concrete layout decisions.
• Map complex dependencies and cross-product data flows where features intersect across our broader educational software ecosystem.

Interaction Architecture & Mobile-First Design

• Wireframe and design holistic, end-to-end mobile-first user flows that flawlessly navigate happy paths, complex edge cases, and failure recovery messages.
• Operate fluently within the established Zeraki Design System, ensuring strict visual harmony, responsive grid alignments, and component consistency across multi-screen pathways.
• Conduct diagnostic system reviews, proactively flagging design gaps and offering structured upgrade recommendations to the design lead rather than building custom workarounds.

Figma Prototyping & Technical Asset Production

• Build low-to-mid-fidelity interactive prototypes in Figma to quickly iterate on user feedback, escalating to high-fidelity files when validation matrices call for it.
• Deploy advanced Figma features—including nested components, complex interactive variants, and flexible auto-layouts—to maintain scalable, clean project assets.
• Conduct detailed walk-throughs of complete Figma canvases with engineering leads prior to sprint planning to eliminate developmental ambiguity.

Engineering Handoff & Product Outcome Tracking

• Produce comprehensive developer handoff packages that allow engineers to execute builds autonomously without requiring repetitive clarifying meetings.
• Defend design positions, layout logic, and usability tradeoffs with clear evidence during collaborative product trio reviews.
• Participate in structured post-release usability reviews 2–4 weeks after every feature deployment, linking design adjustments directly to measurable user outcomes.

Skills & Experience Required

Minimum Entry Criteria

• Academic Foundation: Bachelor’s Degree in Design, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Fine Arts, Computer Science, or a matching technical discipline.
• Professional Longevity: 1 to 2 years of dedicated software product design experience, featuring a verifiable portfolio with at least two features owned entirely from initial scoping through to developer handoff.
• Software Mastery: Exceptional fluency in Figma, demonstrating expert practical command over component libraries, variable tokens, auto-layout rules, and design system constraints.
• Contextual Instincts: Strong natural mobile-first design instincts, with a practical awareness of optimization paths required for low-bandwidth, low-power, and shared-device user environments.

Behavioral & Technical Competencies

• Articulate Presentation: Clear written and verbal communication skills, with the comfort and poise required to defend structural layout strategies using qualitative and quantitative data.
• Problem Framing: Strong intellectual discipline to deeply study and frame a core user problem before reaching for high-fidelity visual solutions.
• Contextual Curiosity: Genuine curiosity regarding the dynamics of the African school ecosystem and the daily workflows of the educators, students, and sponsors who navigate them.

Added Advantages

• Exposure to structured user testing models or formal usability lab research methodologies.
• Prior experience designing digital solutions specifically for schools, educational technology (EdTech) spaces, or complex social impact systems in Africa.

Why Us

• Defined Career Progression: Accelerate your professional growth using our transparent corporate performance framework with direct, structured mentorship from an experienced Product Design Lead.
• Direct Structural Impact: Experience true ownership by working inside an agile product trio where your designs directly influence real-world user metrics and go from concept to code rapidly.
• Meaningful Technology Space: Deploy your creative skills to solve tangible, daily operational challenges for millions of users inside the African education landscape.

Way to Apply

Please submit your updated CV for the Advancing Product Designer position before the deadline on Monday, 20th July 2026.