Manager, UX Design
Job Description
As the Manager of User Experience, 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 UX, UI, and content 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 also partner with product management and development to shepherd, educate and socialize evidence-based design practices.
Core requirements and responsibilities:
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 recruiting program for continuity of information and customer relationship building.
-Help other team members scope & shape learning goals, choosing research methods, creating research plans, conducting studies, and analyzing and synthesizing results.
•Keep the team up-to-date on design industry standards & knowledge base:
-Build in benchmarking as a part of each facet of the design process.
-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 UX/UI guidance.
-Collaborate with product managers & engineers in framing problems, vetting assumptions, identifying learning goals, & scoping UX/UI work.
-Provide thought-leadership for design in developing exceptional experiences.
•Provide cross-functional UX/UI support to product teams with low/no UX 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 UX/UI team culture:
-Maintain bi-weekly 1:1 to ensure that each team member has a dedicated time to discuss growth, blockers, give/receive feedback, etc.
-Set expectations of professional etiquette.
-Set expectations for feedback check-ins; hold to those expectations.
-Hold team accountable for participation in design studios and critiques and to offer kind, constructive critique.
-Create a format in which team members feel comfortable providing feedback to each other.
•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 user research methods traditional & nontraditional, generative & evaluative, qualitative & quantitative.
- You have strong knowledge of UX best practices for web and software, including content-first, mobile-first, responsive design, and accessibility standards.
- 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 with a mix of in-house and consulting setting.
- Experience working on enterprise software applications, ideally in an agile environment.
- You are highly fluent in entire UX 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.
- You have a master's degree, or equivalent experience, in design, HCI, social science, or related field.
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.
Vertafore is a drug free workplace and conducts preemployment drug and background screenings.
The selected candidate must be legally authorized to work in the United States.
The above statements are intended to describe the general nature and level of work being performed by people assigned to this job. They are not intended to be an exhaustive list of all the job responsibilities, duties, skill, or working conditions. Duties, responsibilities and activities may change at any time with or without notice. In addition, this document does not create an employment contract, implied or otherwise, other than an "at will" relationship.
Vertafore strongly supports equal employment opportunity for all applicants regardless of race, color, religion, sex, gender identity, pregnancy, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, age, marital status, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition, sexual orientation, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by state or federal law.