Job Description

We are looking for an analytical, resourceful, and collaborative designer and creative technologist who deems it their duty to craft and implement modular, scalable designs while reducing redundancy, minimizing technical debt, and bridging the gap between user needs and technical constraints. The UX team has been a key player in Vertafore’s software development lifecycle for several years, and now the company is empowering the team to have greater influence. As a Lead UI Architect, you will be part of a centralized and highly visible UX team that sees its solutions built and delivered at a regular cadence.

Who We Are
At Vertafore, we value diverse perspectives, perpetual learning, and continuous improvement. Each day we bring an open mind, a willingness to give and receive feedback, and a dedication to creating quality user experiences.

Our Product Development teams solve problems with a strong customer focus and collaborate in an open, inquisitive, and positive manner. As creative technologists, we see the beauty of humanity in each other and therefore show respect for ourselves and those around us. This allows us to show up for our team and take risks, knowing it’s okay to fail.

We regularly engage in coaching, mentoring, agile ceremonies (like retrospectives), and fun team activities. We define problems based on user needs, not based on technological capabilities. We endeavor to do things in new ways that add value to our world.

All of these factors create a Product Development environment that is fun, collaborative, and innovative. This is highlighted by our quality delivery, happy customers, and diverse, highly empowered team with career mobility. Come join us and be part of the action!

What You’ll Do (Responsibilities)
• Maintain and evolve living libraries for Vertafore’s existing Design Standards & Guidelines as well as Vertafore’s emerging Platform Design System
• Collaborate with the UI Designers to translate new, atomic design elements into modular, scalable, accessible UI components in a 2-week sprint cadence
• Build amicable, trusting relationships with partner teams, serving as a bridge between UX and Development
• Partner with agile teams across multiple products to solve customer problems with a platform experience strategy
• Follow UX, W3C, and industry best practices for designing and developing enterprise desktop, web, and mobile applications
• Participate in UX sprint activities including user research, design studios, critiques, whiteboarding sessions, feasibility reviews, grooming, and design hand-offs
• Regularly listen to Vertafore users in order to understand how they think and work
• Participate in product definition discussions with Product Managers and Product Owners
• Make recommendations for improving the quality, clarity and scope of user stories as needed
• Own the organization and optimization of front-end assets

Skills & Requirements

What We’re Looking for in a Lead UI Architect (Competencies)
• You’re a self-starter and a clear communicator who asks a lot of smart questions.
• Your approach to solving problems is both analytical and collaborative.
• You prefer to start with a whiteboard before opening up your text editor.
• You are both resourceful and judicious; you know when it makes sense to code from scratch rather than start from a snippet or a library (and vice versa).
• You keep current on web software principles, patterns, and best practices, including web standards, accessibility standards, and responsive design.
• You’re a systems thinker who’s happy to wear a business analyst (product owner) hat in order to ensure user experience and non-functional requirements are captured in the backlog.
• You can facilitate feasibility and grooming conversations with a software engineers, negotiating the trade-offs between user impact and technical level of effort.
• You can easily move between considering the forest and paying attention to the trees.
• Your working style demonstrates respect, initiative, ownership, transparency, and accountability.
• You are adaptable and thrive in a fast-paced environment.
• You have a strong knack for learning new tools.

Who You Are (Qualifications)
• You have 3–5 years of professional experience in the startup, agency, or software world, including at least 2 years doing UX or interaction design.
• You have at least 2–3 years of professional experience developing usable and elegant interfaces in a collaborative, cross-functional environment.
• You have at least 1 year of experience working with Git and writing ReactJS UI components.
• You have a compelling portfolio of UI design and web development that showcases your process and skills, including your problem framing, research, problem solving, and ability to write clean, modular, accessible code with the modern web stack (HTML5, CSS3, and Javascript).
• You can share case studies about how you have maximized user impact while simultaneously minimizing technical level of effort and optimizing performance
• You demonstrate proficiency in Adobe Creative Cloud, Sketch, Axure RP, and similar design tools.

Nice-to-haves:
• You are familiar with build tools and task runners such as Webpack, NPM, Node.js, Gulp, and/or Grunt.
• You are familiar with Axios or similar promise-based HTTP clients.
• You are familiar with Sass or LESS.
• You have experience with information architecture or data-driven design.
• You have completed a college degree in computer science, engineering, mathematics, or a related field.
• You have completed a design bootcamp or post-secondary coursework in design, HCI, social science, or a related field.

Vertafore is an EOE employer and 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 equal employment. Minority candidates encouraged to apply.

Any offer of employment is contingent upon the successful completion of a background check and drug screen. Salary commensurate with experience. Vertafore offers comprehensive benefits and trans-friendly health insurance.

Recruiters: Hiring team will not respond to inquiries from third-party recruiting agencies.