Senior UX Designer - Map Visualisation
TomTom's map is seen by millions of people every day - in dashboards, on phones, and across partner products worldwide. As a Senior UX Designer on the Map Visualisation team, you will shape how our 2D and 3D geospatial data is designed, styled, and delivered across TomTom's product portfolio.
You'll spend your days crafting multi-zoom map experiences, working with spatial data, and collaborating closely with engineers and product managers to turn cartographic intent into production-ready map styles. You'll need to be as comfortable discussing label-collision algorithms and style-layer specifications with engineers as you are refining colour palettes and visual hierarchy.
You'll be embedded in a cross-functional product team, participating in the full software development lifecycle - from solution design through pull requests to release. Understanding how modern software teams operate is just as important as your cartographic craft.
What You'll Do
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Design Compelling Map Experiences Create and refine 2D and 3D map visualisations from concept through production delivery. Own the end-to-end cartographic design process - from data exploration and sketching through to style implementation, QA, and iteration across zoom levels, regions, and use cases.
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Maintain and Evolve Core Map Styles Enhance TomTom's core map styles, ensuring consistency, readability, and visual quality across platforms, screen densities, and global markets. Balance aesthetic ambition with rendering performance and data constraints.
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Collaborate with Engineering Teams Work day-to-day alongside software engineers building TomTom's map data structures, renderers and SDKs. Contribute to solution design discussions, provide clear design specifications that engineers can act on, and review visual output during development. Understand and participate in agile workflows, pull request reviews, and feature development cycles.
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Contribute to Renderer and Tooling Requirements Provide detailed input on data and rendering capabilities needed to achieve design goals. Define requirements for internal cartographic authoring tools and identify workflow improvements that raise the team's output quality and speed.
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Inform Decisions with Research and Data Participate in user research, customer conversations, and competitive benchmarking. Use insights to ground design decisions and advocate for improvements that address real user needs.
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Support the Design System and Standards Contribute to the Map Visualisation design system - documenting patterns, conventions, and cartographic guidelines that enable consistency and scale across the product portfolio.
What You'll Need
Cartography & Digital Map Making
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Strong professional background in digital cartography, GIS, or geographic information design.
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Hands-on experience designing and implementing multi-zoom digital maps with attention to cartographic conventions, label placement, generalisation, and cultural adaptation.
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Working proficiency with key mapping technologies and ecosystems: MapLibre, Mapbox GL JS, OpenStreetMap data and tooling, QGIS, ArcGIS, Leaflet, OpenLayers, or comparable platforms.
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Experience working with diverse spatial datasets - vector tiles, raster tiles, GeoJSON, shapefiles, point clouds, or terrain data.
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Solid geographic knowledge and familiarity with cartographic standards across regions and cultures.
Map Visualisation & Rendering
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Demonstrated ability to build visually compelling 2D and 3D map experiences - from thematic styling and terrain visualisation to street-level detail.
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Good understanding of real-time rendering concepts as they apply to maps: style layers, zoom interpolation, data-driven styling, symbol rendering, and performance considerations.
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Proficiency in photorealistic or stylised rendering of real-world environments within a mapping context.
Software Development Collaboration
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Proven experience working inside product engineering teams, not just handing off designs. You're comfortable with agile methodologies, sprint planning, stand-ups, and retrospectives.
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Familiarity with software development workflows: version control (Git), pull requests, code reviews, CI/CD pipelines, and feature branching.
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Ability to read technical documentation and engage meaningfully with engineers on implementation trade-offs - you don't need to write code, but you need to understand how your designs translate into a rendering pipeline.
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Experience contributing to or consuming solution design documents, technical specifications, and cross-functional planning processes.
Senior-Level Craft & Collaboration
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5+ years of relevant professional experience in UX design, cartographic design, GIS, geospatial visualisation, or a closely related discipline.
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Bachelor's or Master's degree in Cartography, Geography, GIS, UX Design, Computer Science, or a related field - or equivalent professional experience.
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Ability to build clear, concise prototypes and specification documentation that bridge design and engineering.
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Strong visual and graphic design fundamentals - typography, colour theory, hierarchy, and layout.
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User-centric mindset with a collaborative, low-ego approach to problem-solving.
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High attention to detail and genuine passion for the craft of map making.
Nice to Have
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Experience with game engines or 3D content pipelines (Unity, Unreal Engine, Blender) and their application to geospatial visualisation.
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Familiarity with front-end development languages (JavaScript/TypeScript, WebGL, GLSL) or scripting for cartographic automation (Python, PostGIS, Overpass API).
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Experience with map data processing tools and pipelines: Tippecanoe, Tilemaker, osm2pgsql, Mapnik, or similar.
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Understanding of the automotive, fleet management, or logistics industries and their mapping requirements.
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Familiarity with emerging trends in spatial computing, AR navigation, or digital twins.
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Experience contributing to design systems at scale.
