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rolesdesign-engineer

Design Engineer

Own the gap between Figma and production. Design it, build it, ship it, across everything families and advisors touch.

  • london · tue–thu in office
  • cross-team
  • permanent
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About the role

When someone dies, their family inherits a mountain of admin. A will is the single most useful thing that makes it smaller, but only if it’s correct, current and actually says what the person meant. That’s the bar every screen we ship has to clear, and it has to feel calm while it does.

As our design engineer, you’ll work across every team rather than inside one. You’ll own the component library and design tokens, take features from rough idea to shipped interface, and decide what good looks like.

Nobody will hand you a pixel-perfect mock to implement. You’ll make the mock, then make it real, then watch how people use it and change it.

The team

You’ll work with every team: the engineers building Ollie, the tools our advisors and Estate Planning Consultants use every day, and our web presence. You’ll be closest to Product and the team leads, and the design system is yours to shape.

We work in small, stable teams that own a product area end to end, from the first conversation with legal to the alert that fires if it breaks. Nobody hands you a ticket and walks away. Teams decide how to solve the problems in front of them, and often which problems are worth solving at all. Decisions are written down, reviewed kindly and revisited when we learn something new.

We’re AI-native. Frontier models, best-in-class agentic tooling, and nobody counts tokens. That pushes the job away from boilerplate and towards the parts that need a person: architecture, judgement, and getting the detail right. Families come to us for a will or for probate, not for software, so we’re not racing the models. Every time they improve, so does the service families get. We ship to production 20+ times a day across 7+ services.

What you’ll do

Most weeks are a mix of designing, building and unblocking other teams. Some of the work you’ll pick up:

  • Design flows and interfaces in Figma, then build them in React. Same person, same week.
  • Own the component library and design tokens, and keep Figma and code saying the same thing.
  • Make hard things feel calm. Someone planning for their own death shouldn’t have to fight a form.
  • Hold the line on accessibility. Our users span every age and ability.
  • Prototype fast, so Product and engineers can react to something real instead of a paragraph.

Your first 90 days

  • Week one: ship a UI change to production, paired with someone who knows the codebase.
  • Audit the component library against Figma and fix the worst of the drift.
  • Take one feature from rough idea to shipped interface, designed and built by you.

What we’re looking for

We care more about how you approach problems than a list of keywords. That said, here’s what tends to make someone successful in this role.

You’ll need

  • A portfolio that shows both the design and the code behind it.
  • Strong Figma: components, variables, auto layout, the unglamorous structure that makes a system scale.
  • Production React and TypeScript.
  • Taste, and the ability to explain it to an engineer in terms they’ll act on.

Nice to have

bonus
  • Vue. Some of our estate still uses it.
  • A pipeline from Figma variables to code tokens, built by you.
  • Motion and micro-interactions that earn their place.
  • Next.js or another server-rendered React setup.

Don’t tick every box?Apply anyway. We hire for how you think, not a checklist.

What you’ll work with

design
  • figma
components, variables, auto layout
languages
  • typescript
framework
  • react
  • next.js
also
  • vue
parts of the estate
agents
  • claude code
  • whatever you're fastest in

The honest bits

Every product has them. Better you hear it from us.

debt
Not every screen lives in the design system yet. Some are older and look it. Deciding what to fix first is your call.
range
You’re one person across every team. Saying “not yet” is part of the job, and we’ll back you when you do.
regs
Regulated, sensitive data. Some changes need a second pair of eyes from legal, and that’s on purpose.
pace
We ship often, but “move fast and break things” isn’t an option when the thing is someone’s will.

You’ll probably enjoy this if

  • You can’t leave a misaligned label alone, and you know how to fix it in code.
  • You’d rather ship something simple and kind than impressive and confusing.
  • You can talk about death plainly. Our users are planning for it or living through it.

What we offer

Listed, not teased. If something matters to you and isn’t here, ask in your first call.

holiday
27 days + bank holidays + your birthday
pension
3% contribution
working pattern
Hybrid. In the office Tuesday to Thursday at Monument, London
contract
Permanent
learning
Time carved out for it, plus budget agreed case by case
a will, on us
A free will for you, and a discount for friends and family
tools
Whatever makes you fastest. Frontier models, agentic tooling, no token budget.
ownership
Real decisions from week one. You’ll be trusted with the call and backed when it’s hard.

How we’ll get to know each other

Four stages, about two weeks end to end. You’ll hear back within two working days of each one, whatever the outcome.

  1. Intro call30 min · video

    A relaxed conversation with the hiring manager about what you’ve worked on and what you’re looking for. Ask us anything.

    you’ll meet the hiring manager · nothing to prepare

  2. Meet our People team30 min · video

    A conversation about how you like to work, what you need from a team to do your best work, and the practical stuff: start dates, adjustments, anything you’re unsure about.

    you’ll meet our People team · nothing to prepare

  3. Portfolio and build session~2.5 hours · on site

    Two parts. First, walk us through two pieces of work you’re proud of, from first sketch to production, and the compromises along the way. Then take a small design problem from Figma to working React on your own laptop. Look things up, use agents, think out loud. No take-home.

    you’ll meet the team · bring your work and your laptop

  4. Final conversation45 min · video

    Meet our founder. Talk about where Octopus Legacy is going, where you’d fit in it, and anything you still want to know. It runs both ways.

    you’ll meet our founder · bring your questions

  5. Decisionwithin two working days

    A clear yes or no, with written feedback either way. If it’s a yes, we’ll talk through the offer on a call. No exploding deadlines.

    from the hiring manager

About Octopus Legacy

Octopus Legacy is the place to plan for death and find support after loss. We were founded after our founder’s mum died suddenly, and we’re a group of people who work in death because we’ve been affected by it. We help people write a will, set up a trust or a Lasting Power of Attorney, and protect the people they love. When someone dies, we help their family with probate and the practical, personal and emotional challenges that come after. We’re part of Octopus Group, alongside Octopus Energy and Octopus Investments.

Octopus Legacy is committed to creating an inclusive environment and is proud to be an equal opportunities employer. We welcome applications from everyone. If you need any adjustments at any stage, tell us and we’ll make them, no explanation needed.

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