About this role
We’re On the Beach! Since 2003, we've been rewriting the rules of how people discover, book, and experience their perfect getaway. What started as connecting people to short-haul beach holidays has evolved into something much bigger - premium beach destinations, long-haul adventures, and vibrant city breaks – and that’s just the beginning of our story.
We send around two million holidaymakers on their dream breaks every year. And we're still growing.
Powered by our deep-rooted entrepreneurial spirit, proprietary tech, curiosity and our incredible people, we’re accelerating - delivering best in class technology, the ultimate holiday app, and experiences that keep our customers coming back for more.
Ready to build the future of travel with us?
About the Role
Being a Principal here means leading the end-to-end experience, across all touch points, not just a slice of it. You'll work with every function involved: research, product, data, CRM, brand, marketing, customer operations and more.
You earn this level of influence by operating at a senior strategic level, which means understanding the commercials as deeply as anyone in the room, and pulling commercial data, product insight, research and strategy into clear, sized opportunities.
Three things make that possible here:
The evidence is already at your fingertips: all our commercial and product data is self-serve via LLM. Pull whatever you want, whenever. No backlog, no gatekeeper.
We're low ego and low bureaucracy, with no fiefdoms to fight through. Ideas succeed on the strength of the case, not who's making them.
Our teams aren't fixed to one slice of the experience. We form the right team for each opportunity.
With that, you'll set trajectory alongside our leadership team, then take the work right down to production. You'll create ambitious experience visions, raise our design standards, craft elegant experiences, and be measured on impact.
In the role, you'll:
Partner with the people who own our customer outcomes, grounded in a real understanding of the unit economics
Build a deep picture from data, customer insight and the wider market, and use it to spot the opportunities worth chasing
Hold the end-to-end view: how the parts add up to one coherent experience, and where the next step change comes from
Align teams and departments, and coach the designers around you
Work in small, agile teams who move fast from idea to live experiment
Design to a high bar that strengthens our design system
You'll report to the Director of Product Design. There may be some people management depending on how the team evolves, but it's secondary: seniority here is about owning the hardest problems, not the size of your team.
How, When & Where we work.
We want you to do your best work without sacrificing your life outside of it:
Hybrid Working: We gather at our Aeroworks office in Manchester City Centre just one day every two weeks.
Flexible Hours: Standard hours are 37.5/week with core hours between 10am–4pm.
Family & Wellbeing: Enhanced maternity, paternity, adoption, and shared parental leave...
What you’ll be doing day to day
Partner with the people who own our customer outcomes as an equal voice on vision, priorities and the value question, keeping a relentless focus on customer and business value, grounded in a real understanding of the unit economics
Build a deep picture from data, customer insight and the wider market, and use it to spot the opportunities worth chasing
Hold the end-to-end view: how the parts add up to one coherent experience, and where the next step change comes from
Align teams and departments, and coach the designers around you
Move fast from idea to tested prototype, and design to a high bar that strengthens our design system
You'll report to the Director of Product Design. There may be some people management depending on how the team evolves, but it's secondary: seniority here is about owning the hardest problems, not the size of your team.
You’ll be a great addition to our team if you have the following skills, knowledge and experience
A senior designer with several years on customer-facing products, who shapes direction and partners on outcomes (ecommerce experience a plus, not a requirement)
Someone who wants the accountability, comfortable setting a direction, standing behind it, and being measured on what it delivers
Comfortable driving across a cross-functional group: aligning people, influencing without authority, holding the whole picture
Fluent with the commercial and customer picture, and reaches for data and testing to know whether you're right
At home with pace, ambiguity and modern tooling, and keen to use it to get from concept to something real, quickly
We'd love a portfolio that tells us about your thinking and what you learned, as much as the final designs.
Don’t check every single box? Apply anyway!
Research shows that women and underrepresented groups tend to apply only if they meet 100% of the listed criteria. If you’re excited about this role and bring strong product design leadership, we’d love to hear from you.
We'd love a portfolio that tells us about your thinking and what you learned, as much as the final designs.
What to expect from our interview process
We’ll run a multiple stage interview process, one stage of which may be an in-person interview at our fabulous Aeroworks office in Manchester city centre.
1. Intro call (20 mins, with our Talent team)
The basics: what you're looking for, fit, right to work, and salary expectations. A good moment to ask anything early about the role or package.
2. Hiring manager interview (1 hour, with our Director of Product Design)
We'd love to hear about your background, plus a quick informal walkthrough of some of your work, around 15 minutes. We'll also tell you much more about the role and company, and there's time for any questions you have for the hiring manager.
3. Project walkthrough (1 hour, with a cross-functional panel)
Present one or two projects to a small panel of your future peers, around 30 minutes, then questions. This is also a great opportunity for you to hear how our cross-functional teams work.
4. Leadership interview (45 mins, with our senior leaders)
A conversation with leaders from Product, Data, Engineering and People about how you think, lead and make an impact. These will be great people to answer questions about our culture, strategy, and anything else on your mind
We want to make sure everybody has the opportunity to perform at their best. If you require any reasonable adjustments during the interview process please let the Talent Acquisition team know and they will be happy to assist.
Ways of working
Our full time hours are 37.5 per week, but we don't have rigid working hours so you can find the working pattern that's right for you. We have core working hours between 10am - 4pm, so we can collaborate and enjoy the social side of work.
We also have hybrid working so we all work from home and from our Aeroworks office in Manchester City Centre. You’ll be in the office one day every two weeks, and you’re more than welcome to come in more if you’d like.
Our benefits
We might be biased but we think our colleagues are pretty great. They're the people that have made On the Beach what it is today and continue to make it vibrant and successful tomorrow. That's why we offer a benefits package, known as our Beach Perks, to all On the Beach colleagues.
We offer a competitive salary alongside performance-based annual bonuses and LTIP to reward your sustained impact.
These include:
25 days holiday plus your birthday off
Generous discount on holidays, plus you will receive 2 extra days annual leave on top of your holiday allowance to use whilst you're away on your On the Beach package holiday
Access to Learnerbly learning platform, plus workshops, courses and professional qualifications
Enhanced maternity, paternity, shared parental leave and adoption pay, plus other family friendly support
Employee Assistance Programme and free access to counselling
Simplyhealth Optimise Health Plan
Company Sick Pay scheme
Regular wellbeing events
Gym discount
Share Incentive Plan (SIP)
Death in Service cover
Onsite subsidised coffee shop
The Sandbox (our very own bar)
Food and drink discounts across a number of venues in Manchester City Centre
Regular social events
Cycle to Work scheme
Tired of cold applications?
Sign up with Clera and we'll reach out the moment a role actually fits you — no more spraying applications into the void.
Know someone who'd be great for this?