At Kindred, our work around safe gambling involves departments across the whole Group. It is also a strategic pillar embedded in our corporate strategy. Recently, our Design Team was invited to speak at a UX Playground digital event. UX Playground is a community that connects members, experts, and industry partners to learn and apply User Experience Design collaboratively. At this event, we shared knowledge on how the design team translates customer insights into safe gambling experiences, whilst supporting the need to scale the business. You can find the recorded session here.
Our global Design Team is growing. What are we looking for and what can you expect as a candidate? We interviewed Chris Parmenter, who heads up our Product Design function to find out more.
Additional to specific skills and expertise, what are you looking for in an ideal candidate?
Within the UX team, we are looking for people who bring an open mindset, collaborate closely with their UX colleagues and wider business stakeholders. We also look for people who have a general desire to improve the team and the individuals within it going forward.
For those joining Kindred’s Design Team from outside the gambling industry, what are the biggest differences and what can they expect?
Working in Gambling can be complex, both from a regulatory and perception point of view. Layer that on top of having multiple brands, markets and products, and quite quickly what appears to be a simple undertaking can evolve into a multi-layered design challenge. We are looking for people with a can-do attitude. Those who can work through problems, overcome complex scenarios and come to the best possible solution to clearly defined business and customer problems.
Kindred offers multiple products and brands across various markets. How is the Design Team organised to support all these? Who are your key business stakeholders?
There are multiple things that we do to help manage our products and brands. Starting with the design and development of our centralised Design System that covers all Kindred Group brands and market needs. This is a work in progress, as with most Design Systems, but it is a central piece that helps us deliver customer improvements quickly and efficiently, at scale to our Experiences. From a stakeholder point of view, we work closely with multiple parts of the business: from Experience and Product Owners to Developers, as well as Product, Commercial and Legal teams depending on the problem area.
How do you support skills development in the team, and are there opportunities for career progression?
We are currently in the process of creating a skills matrix and development plans for all Product Design team members. This will help reflect on where a designer is today, gain 360 feedback and pinpoint their future development needs and opportunities. The Product Design function is broad and has people who are more specialised in specific parts of the design process and people who work more broadly across it. So, it’s important to understand where each person is, what their aspirations are and where they want to develop in the future (aligned to their individual career ambitions).
How would you describe workplace culture in your team?
Out of all the places I have worked, Kindred has by far the best culture. In my team, we really embrace our company values, especially ‘we believe in friendship’ and ‘we dare to challenge’. We build a team culture that is based on collaboration, whilst leveraging individual knowledge, expertise and experience.
Click here to view our open vacancies.
