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Max Lavender

Located in Sheffield, UK

About
14 years designing digital products. The last 4 building self-serve experiences, systems, and teams at Jet2, supporting 15M+ travellers annually.

I'm a Senior UX Designer at Jet2, leading self-serve and account experiences across web, iOS, and Android. I also lead the multi-platform design system (React, SwiftUI, Jetpack Compose) that powers them.

I specialise in system-level product design and design systems at scale. I line-manage 5 designers across product squads, focusing on clarity, consistency, and operational efficiency across complex ecosystems. I also mentor on ADPList, coaching designers globally on systems thinking and career growth.

Design philosophy

  • Design is a system, not a set of screens. I design for scale: component-first thinking, tokens, and patterns that survive multiple teams and platforms. Consistency is an operational advantage.
  • The score is the customer outcome, not the deliverable. I care about what changes in the real world: conversion, task success, reduced friction, fewer support contacts.
  • Craft is care, and care is measurable. Small UI decisions become repeated moments for millions of customers. I sweat details that affect trust: clarity, tone, error handling, motion, accessibility.
  • Simplicity is the hardest, most valuable form of design. Fewer, clearer choices. I treat focus as a product feature.

Leadership

  • Lead through fundamentals and discipline. Naming, states, accessibility, versioning, governance. Make quality normal, not heroic.
  • Context over control. Enable through clarity, not tight process. Highly capable people owning outcomes.
  • Raise the bar through coaching, critique, and clear expectations. Lead by doing. Make craft contagious through the team.
  • Cross-functional partnership. Bridge design, engineering, and product. Shared language, shared definitions, shared measures of success.
  • High standards, low ego. Strong opinions loosely held, backed by data and usability.

Writing & thought leadership

I write about product design, systems thinking, and organisational effectiveness. My articles have been published in UX Bootcamp (100K+ followers).

Experience

Jet2

2021 — Present

Senior UX Designer (2024 — Present)

  • Built Jet2's multi-platform design system, contributing to a 63% reduction in UI defect volume for adopting teams (Q3–Q4 2025, normalised)
  • Led design for Guest Access and myJet2 redesign across web + native (52% increase in logged-in users)
  • Managed and mentored 5 designers across product squads, establishing design standards and system-level thinking
  • Partnered with engineering, product, and CX leadership to translate complex operational rules into clear user journeys

Previous experience (2012-2021): Design roles at etiCloud, Bolser Agency, IDAQ Networks, and Overfinch. Full CV available on request.

Learning & development

I self-fund continuous learning and invest heavily in development—recent courses from industry leaders at Netflix, Airbnb, Linear, and Dropbox covering design systems, product strategy, and organisational effectiveness.

Breakthrough innovation strategy

In progress

The Moonshot Factory (Google X) • MasterClass

Web animation design

Planned

Emil Kowalski (Linear, Vercel) • animations.dev

Interface craft

Planned

Josh Puckett (Dropbox, Wealthfront) • interfacecraft.dev

Design system planning & process

2025

Nathan Curtis • Into Design Systems

Product strategy

2024

Gibson Biddle (Netflix) • Maven

Describing the ROI of design

2024

Ryan Scott (Airbnb, DoorDash) • Maven

UX research bootcamp

2022

Memorisely

BA Graphic Design

2012—2016

University of Huddersfield