Written by: Victor Campanha
Reviewed by: Carla Garcia, Cristina Luckner and Felipe Victor

Design has been a part of Nubank’s DNA ever since its foundation. And it wasn’t just for when we chose purple as our color. As Product Designers, we spend most of our time looking for ways to simplify daily tasks to the point of making them even pleasant. That is our specialty.

But financial service solutions that seem obvious today were not created merely from creative outbursts. Some genius ideas are born from well-applied processes.

These processes go through needs assessment, research, strategy setting, conceptualization, validation, and follow-up. And most of all: freedom and autonomy to explore the best paths. 

In this article I will delve into the Product Designer profession — one of the careers within the Nubank’s Design team.

What does a Product Designer do?

Product Designers work in a team with Product Managers, Developers, Content Designers, UX Researchers, Business Analysts, among others. This multidisciplinary group usually has a common goal, which may be related to, for instance, improving the way clients carry out a specific task. 

Scope of Work

The steps in the design process can vary according to the project’s goals and stages. Among them, we can highlight:

  • Understanding: where we raise questions, existing data, research, and opportunities about a theme.
  • Definition: after collecting data from the previous step, we decide what will be done. Deciding on priorities and strategies to solve the problem is also done in this step.
  • Design: ideas are drafted, improved, prototyped, and discussed with the team in review meetings. We also assess the idea with our clients here. 
  • Delivery: where we ensure that the team has everything they need to develop the product. This includes documentation, close communication and launch strategies. 
  • Launch: in this step, the product will be in contact with a relevant number of clients, so this is the ideal moment to assess whether the goals are being met through data regarding usage, performance, and assistance calls.
  • Evaluation: after collecting the data, this is the moment in which we evaluate whether the project was successful or not and plan its evolution.

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What knowledge is expected for Product Designers at Nubank?

The level of technical knowledge varies according to the moment in each professional’s career. In general, Product Designers should have skills such as:

  • Good communication to raise questions at the right time and with the right people, ensure strategy alignment throughout the process and defend their design decisions;
  • Work in cooperation to reach the best solutions, leveraging the different skills and strengths in the team;
  • Repertoire, whether it is tools, references, experiences or other knowledge that widens the range of possibilities to solve challenges;
  • Interest in the clients’ issues and behaviors in order to suggest solutions that are contextually relevant and impactful.

Product Designers use their skills and work process to create good solutions, and everything we do starts and ends by putting people at the center of our strategy. Much more than designing pretty screens on an app, we design solutions that permeate actions, needs and moments in life.

What do Product Designers say?

“As a Product Designer at Nubank, every day I feel motivated to use Design to understand what is best for our clients and plan experiences that are simple and charming. Not just sticking with the first solution, but instead exploring more ideas with freedom and autonomy. And what keeps me motivated in this process is that I’m not doing it alone: counting on the collaboration with professionals from a wide range of fields is the cherry on top!”

Evilanne Brandão, Product Designer (Insurance)

“Being a PD here at Nubank means having days that are very different from one another, because we cooperate with people bringing different expertises and also approach many fields. We explore, come up with hypotheses, design solutions, keep up with metrics and many other things. The best part is that everything is done together but meeting the needs of our clients is always the decisive factor, and knowing that we created experiences that make the lives of millions of people easier is very motivating!”

Keila Casarin, Product Designer (Account)

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