Design Practice Lead

We are X, bigly labs, Dis-Chem’s high-performance innovation hub; a place where bold ideas meet data, design, and radical customer focus to reimagine what healthcare can be.

Our mission is to power the future of healthcare by lowering costs, unlocking new possibilities, and improving access to healthcare for all South Africans. We do this through cutting-edge digital solutions that deliver smarter, more human, and truly patient-focused experiences. Here, your work is not limited to a whiteboard; it becomes real. It drives decisions, shapes experiences, and moves healthcare forward. We are driven by one big question: How do we use data and today’s technology to build breakthroughs to better health?

There’s only one question left: are you ready to make healthcare smarter, and actually mean it?

Architect and evolve the Design Practice (UX, UI, Service Design, and Design System) to ensure X, bigly labs delivers cohesive, human centred, behaviourally sound and systemic customer experiences. You will translate enterprise strategy and research insights into omnichannel service blueprints and scalable design systems, while empowering Design Practitioners to drive craft excellence and strategic delivery across their respective Tribes. You will lead the strategic direction and architectural design of the end-to-end experience, integrating and organising design structures and standards across all design areas into a single, unified design capability.

WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR?

• Minimum qualification: Bachelor’s degree in Interaction Design, Service Design, HCI, or related human-centred design discipline. Postgraduate studies in Behavioural Economics, Systems Thinking, or Business Strategy highly advantageous.
• Experience: 10+ years in user experience, product, or service design. 3–5 years in a strategic leadership position managing senior/principal designers, governing design systems, and driving design maturity across an enterprise.
• Systems/Tools: Advanced understanding of design system architecture (Figma), service blueprinting and complex mapping tools (Miro/FigJam), and bridging design-to-agile workflows (Jira/Confluence).
• Domain & business acumen: Demonstrated commercial acumen and experience designing within complex, regulated enterprise environments (e.g., financial services) is highly advantageous.

WHAT YOU WILL BE DOING?

• Define the overarching design strategy, ensuring frontstage customer experiences are seamlessly connected to backstage organisational processes and legacy architectures.
• Maintain the golden thread between the strategic North Star vision and proposition-level design explorations across the delivery portfolios.
• Govern the Design System as an enterprise product. Architect the governance model to ensure it scales quality, accessibility, and UI consistency across the organisation.
• Lead, coach, and mentor design practitioners, ensuring they are equipped to navigate stakeholder dynamics, challenge agile delivery assumptions, and uphold craft standards.
• Bridge the gap between design vision and agile delivery by establishing operational frameworks that prioritise the backlog based on combined user value and business viability
• Integrate CX and behavioural measurement frameworks (e.g., CES, task success, behavioural nudge effectiveness) to continuously prove the commercial value of design interventions.

WHO YOU ARE?

• Ability to map causal loops and leverage points, understanding how micro-level UI decisions impact macro-level business operations.
• Applies principles of choice architecture, cognitive bias mitigation, and habit loops to experience design.
• Deep understanding of Agile/Lean UX methodologies and how to operationalise systemic design changes within corporate technical constraints.
• Structures information, content, and conversational patterns for navigability, clarity, and consistency across channels.
• Translates business strategy, regulatory context, and emerging technology into evidence-led design decisions that demonstrate commercial value.

Our values show up in how we think, build, and make choices that make an impact. We are building a culture that drives progress; one that fixes friction, chases what changes, and owns the outcome. We design with tomorrow in mind, ask sharper questions, and answer them with care, urgency, and systems that scale.

Think you’ve got energy, curiosity, and guts? Come hold the space, make it matter, and own a breakthrough.