JOB DESCRIPTION

As the Director, Product Design, you will play a critical role in bringing our end-users to a central focus in Vertafore’s agile product development process. You will lead a team of product designers to ensure the delivery of modern and innovative user experience while creating net new products and capabilities for thousands of insurance professionals. You will collaborate with other design leaders to define and implement strategic design initiatives. You will also partner with product management and development to shepherd, educate and socialize evidence-based design practices.

Core Requirements and Responsibilities:

Essential job functions included but are not limited to the following:

Design Literacy

• Work closely with the team to ensure a cohesive experience across product verticals:
• Establish & socialize evidence-based practices for Lean UX Research.
• Build & maintain an evidence-based Customer Insight knowledge base & best practices (journey maps, personas, other archetypes and models).
• Create a user research program for continuity of information and customer relationship building.
• Help other team members in design planning and execution.
• Keep the team up-to-date on design industry standards & knowledge base:
• Participate in evolving inclusive/universal design practices with the team.
• Foster a culture where each member feels empowered to bring new ideas to the table to push our expertise forward.

Cross-functional Collaboration

• Partner with product & development to guide the user experience strategy of new features and products from conception through launch:
• Manage expectations & design literacy across cross-functional teams through providing high-level product design guidance.
• Collaborate with product managers & engineers in framing problems, vetting assumptions, identifying learning goals, & scoping product design work.
• Provide thought-leadership for design in developing exceptional experiences.
• Provide cross-functional product design support to product teams with low/no design resources.
• Identify & negotiate resourcing opportunities what can be delivered as “good enough” with the intent to iterate to ensure timely delivery of assets.
• Build relationships with Product Managers and Product Owners and teach them the why, when, and how of UX Research (both discovery and evaluation).
• Plan and facilitate workshops that teach and socialize user research, experience strategy, and product definition.

Team Enablement

• Shape and maintain product design team culture:
• Foster individual growth along with team growth
• Mentor team in design communication, facilitation and feedback
• Create a curious, fun culture for the team, caring for each individual’s wellbeing
• Promote each individual’s professional growth:
• Help individuals define professional growth areas and provide them with actionable steps to achievement.
• Understand what ‘meaningful work’ means to each member and find opportunities for them to pursue.
• Support individuals in practicing evidence-based design, including how to communicate design decisions cross-functionally.
• Provide frameworks and tools to help individuals view opportunities from a different lens.
• Minimize/remove roadblocks for individual contributors to enable them to do their best work:
• Provide timely feedback / support / guidance on process and work.
• Troubleshoot & adapt inefficient processes.
• Ensure that team has access to tools necessary to complete their work.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

·         You’re a leader, a bridge-builder, and an effective communicator who asks the nuanced and previously unasked questions.

·         You have a strong grasp of the theories, concepts, and methods of design research and user-centered design which you have applied in a variety of contexts.

·         You are able to lead projects teams, meet deadlines, and adapt quickly to changing priorities in a fast-paced agile environment.

·         Your toolbox includes in a variety of ux design and visual design practices.

·         You are fluent in collaborating and negotiating with Product Managers and/or Project Managers.

·         You are competent presenting to and gaining buy-in from internal stakeholders, including director level and above.

·         You are competent leading design discovery and strategy workshops, design studios, and design critiques.

·         You can clearly document and communicate information architectures, system interactions (taskflows, user models), and other artifacts.

Qualifications:

·         5+ years of relevant design industry experience, ideally (but not limited to) an in-house team

·         Experience working on enterprise software applications, ideally in an agile environment.

·         You are highly fluent in entire design process as demonstrated by a compelling portfolio of UX research, design and strategy work that showcases your problem framing, research, problem solving, and visualization skills.

Additional Requirements and Details:

·         Travel required up to 15% of the time.

·         Located and working from an office location.

·         Occasional lifting and/or moving up to 10 pounds.

·         Frequent repetitive hand and arm movements required to operate a computer.

·         Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision (working on a computer, etc.).

·         Frequent sitting and/or standing.