nera
Building a digital bank from the ground up.
For the past three years, I had the opportunity to help shape nera, a digital banking app powered by alrajhi bank, designed for youth aged 18-30
Unlike traditional banking apps, nera brings together everyday banking, saving, investing, and financial wellbeing into one modern experience built around the needs of a younger generation
Joining the team at an early stage meant stepping into a fast-paced startup environment, where priorities shifted quickly and every designer had the opportunity to influence the product.
Summary
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Duration
+3 years
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Role
Assistant Manager - Creative Product Design (Acting Manager)
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Team
Led 5 Product Designers
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Product
Digital Banking & FinTech
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Focus
Product Design, Design Leadership, Design System, UX Strategy
My Journey
When I joined nera, I stepped into a role unlike any I’d experienced before.
I wasn’t just responsible for designing products- I was helping build a digital bank from the ground up while learning how to navigate a startup culture inside one of the region’s largest financial institutions.
As the product grew, so did my responsibilities.
Alongside designing complex financial experiences, I began leading a team of five product designers, introducing design standards, improving team processes, and helping create a more consistent product experience across multiple squads.
Looking back, those three years shaped me not only as a designer but also as a leader.
My Role
Throughout my time at nera, I worked across every stage of the product lifecycle.
From understanding business requirements and defining user journeys to designing interfaces, validating ideas, collaborating with engineering, and reviewing implementation, I remained closely involved from concept to release
My responsibilites included:
End-to-end product design
User experience strategy
Design system contribution and governance
UX writing
Design QA
Cross functional collaboration
Leading a team of five product designers
Mentoring designers and improving design processes
Products we designed
Designing within constraints
One of the most rewarding and challenging aspects of working on nera was designing financial products within a highly regulated environment.
Every feature needed to balance three equally important perspectives:
User experience
Business goals
SAMA regulatory requirements
Rather than viewing compliance as a limitation, I learned how to transfer complex regulations into experiences that felt simple, trustworthy, and easy to understand.
This challenge fundamentally changed how I approach product design → teaching me that great design often comes from solving within constraints, no avoiding them.
Growing beyond product design
As the team expanded, my focus naturally extended beyond designing interfaces.
I became increasingly interested in improving how our design team worked→creating better processes, raising design quality, and helping designers succeed.
Some of the initiatives I introduced included:
Team Design OKRs
9-Point Design Review Checklist
Design QA standards
Weekly Design System Change Log
Loader Guidelines
Design System governance
Cross-functional design reviews
These initiatives helped create greater consistency across the product while improving collaboration between Design, Engineering, QA, and Product teams.
Cross-Functional Collaboration
Building nera was never a design-only effort.
Every project involved close collaboration with Product Managers, Business Analysts, Developers, QA Engineers, Compliance, Marketing, Customer Experience, and Business stakeholders.
Working closely with different disciplines taught me how to communicate design decisions clearly, align competing priorities, and find solutions that balanced user needs, technical feasibility, and business objectives.
Featured work in nera
Leading Design Beyond Screens
Design has never been just about creating interfaces for me, As I grew in my career, I found myself equally passionate about improving the way design team works
Tokenized Design System
Directed the creation of nera’s tokenized design system → establishing the governance model and standards
Key Takeaways
My three years at nera taught me far more than how to design financial products.
They taught me how to:
Design within complex regulatory environments.
Build products in fast-paced startup teams.
Lead and mentor designers.
Create scalable design processes.
Collaborate across multiple disciplines.
Balance business goals with user needs.
Think beyond individual screens and focus on long-term product quality.
nera shaped the designer - and the design leader - I am today.