Director, Product Design

The Director of Product Design is responsible for managing the usability of all products and workflows, ensuring they are intuitive and user-friendly to achieve adoption and business impact. They work through their team to create systems for continuous product research and user feedback, identify and validate high-value problem and solutions, and develop prototypes and high-fidelity designs for production software. The role requires systematic thinking, deep empathy for user needs, and creativity to develop impactful product designs. It is a highly collaborative role that involves influencing cross-functional peers across technology functions, building relationships with cross-functional commercial partners and executives, and managing  a high-performing design team.

How You’ll Do It

Lists of responsibilities

• Continuous Research & Feedback Systems
• Organize systems for in-depth one-on-one interviews and distribute periodic surveys to gather qualitative and quantitative feedback.
• Organize usability testing sessions and launch beta testing programs to involve users in early-stage product evaluation.
• Implement feedback mechanisms within the product and leverage customer support interactions to capture real-time user feedback.
• Systematize the analysis of usage data and user behavior to identify patterns and areas for product improvement.
• Establish user feedback panels and maintain online forums to facilitate ongoing user input and discussion.
• Solution Generation & Refinement
• Define standard processes to quickly create and iterate on design concepts using rapid prototyping and detailed wireframes.
• Define guidelines for building interactive prototypes and high-fidelity mockups to visualize final designs and test usability.
• Lead focused design sprints and collaborative workshops with cross-functional teams to brainstorm and co-create solutions
• Develop user journey and/or empathy maps to understand user interactions and inform design decisions across a broad set of users, workflows, and products
• Implement systems for A/B testing and scenario-based design approaches to tailor solutions to specific user contexts and determine the most effective designs.
• People Management
• Attracting, recruiting and evaluating Product,  Engineering, and Design talent as part of hiring panels
• Regular meetings with direct reports to provide coaching, feedback, and guidance (1x1s, development meetings, problem-solving sessions)
• Formal performance management processes including calibrations, written performance summaries, etc.
• Influencing and Communication
• Building high-trust relationships with senior leaders across the business to serve as a trusted advisor and thought partner
• Evangelizing a compelling vision for continuous product discovery and solution refinement systems that  educate and inspire buy-in across the organization
• Distilling complex information across multiple domains into a synthesized, well-supported structure that informs and makes the case for action
• Facilitating or leading large cross-functional meetings with stakeholders of any seniority level

The Right Stuff

• 10 years experience in overall professional experience working on complex business and/or technology problems
• 5+ years experience in Product Design, UX/UI, and/or User Research experience working in an agile software development lifecycle (SDLC) environment
• 3 years managing direct reports performing product design / research / UX related work.
• Advanced communication (written, verbal and presentation) skills, to deliver complex information effectively and align people with the needs of the project/team
• Advanced problem solving skills, able to manage complex situations with multiple layers, and resolve to solution anticipating needs now and into the future
• Advanced understanding of continuous product discovery methodologies, including interviews, ethnographic research, job shadowing, passive feedback collection (e.g., surveys, product usage analytics), prototyping, etc.
• Advanced awareness of workflow, and project tradeoffs to make decisions based on needs now and into the future
• Advanced leadership knowledge, and ability to build, develop and coach the team and manage the overall group/team workflow to successful deliverables/outcomes
• Demonstrated ability to influence strategic direction of major business initiatives and product development lifecycles
• Advanced understanding of modern software development tools, processes, and architecture patterns; knows how to strike a balance between usability needs and the back-end software solution complexity
• Demonstrated ability to manage multiple project deliverables, making decisions and understanding tradeoffs, and create processes for efficiency and effective product delivery for their team and broader cross-functional delivery coalitions
• Demonstrated mastery of synthesizing understanding of a given market in terms of key user segments and value sizing, jobs to be done, competitive offerings, and target opportunities for differentiated value creation.
• High level skillset in program management tools, and project mapping
• High level technical skills and mastery of the industry to mitigate complicated issues and manage multiple complex deliverables simultaneously
• G-Suite Tools, Collaboration tools (slack is preferred), basic office machines, Atalassian SDLC suite (Jira, Confluence, etc.)
• Expert with modern product design tools such as Figma and Miro, as well as user ethnography and feedback tools and methods

Last updated on Aug 22, 2024