Portrait of Jozsef Szabics, rendered as a mezzotint

Design and leadership.
Without the gap.

I lead design teams and ship alongside them — the strategic call and the hands-on work are one job, held to one standard.

Open toPlayer-coach / Lead & Head of Design
LocationLondon / Hybrid & UK / Remote
StatusOpen for opportunities
Clients & employers05 marks  [●■]
B2BB2CRECRUITMENTPRODUCT DESIGN
B2BB2CFUNDRAISING & TICKETINGPRODUCT DESIGN
B2BB2CFUNDRAISINGPRODUCT DESIGN
B2CHOSPITALITYDIGITAL EXPERIENCE
B2CGAMINGPRODUCT DESIGN

Work

Proof of work
05 documents  [●■]

Career

Sixteen years in the making
09 positions  [●■]

Lead Designer

Reed.co.uk2024 — 26

Senior Product Designer

Reed.co.uk2023

Lead Product Designer

Enthuse2021 — 22

Worked withLondon Marathon Events, Great Run Company

Product Designer

FSB2019 — 21

Worked withHungarian National Lottery Fund, JenningsBet, Fitzdares, QuinnBet

About

The person behind the spec
03 threads  [●■]

I'm a product design leader in London, most recently Lead Designer at Reed.co.uk.

One job kept leading to the next, and each one asked for something the last one hadn't. A print shop taught me how things actually get made. Apparel and sportswear design taught me why efficiency matters and how a system holds together at scale. Agency work threw me at industries I had no business understanding — finance, gaming, gastronomy, telecommunications — and made me learn fast every time. My degree in Computer Science and Economics ran alongside all of it, giving me the science and the numbers to back that instinct up — choosing one over the other never felt like an option.

Moving to London reset a lot of that confidence on purpose. I went from running a team to being the newest, least experienced person in the room again, more than once. I learned to sit with that instead of rushing past it — that not knowing something yet is different from not being any good at it.

What stayed constant was curiosity about how things actually work underneath. Every industry I touched added a different question to carry forward: what makes people trust, what makes a system hold up at scale, what makes a decision defensible in a room full of people. That habit of asking better questions than I did the year before is what actually qualified me to lead a team of my own.

Off the clock

Shot on foot, and from the sky
08 frames  [●■]

Walking, cycling or camping somewhere with worse weather than planned — the camera comes along. It's not brand decoration, it's most of how I spend a weekend.

Dambulla, Sri Lanka
Dambulla, Sri Lanka
Augusta, Italy
Augusta, Italy
Sigiriya, Sri Lanka
Sigiriya, Sri Lanka
Anglesey, Wales
Anglesey, Wales
Gran Canaria, Spain
Gran Canaria, Spain
Pembrokeshire, Wales
Pembrokeshire, Wales
Stromboli, Italy
Stromboli, Italy
Udawalawe, Sri Lanka
Udawalawe, Sri Lanka
01–04 / 08

Password required

The case studies are private. Please request access if interested.

Request access