Associate Design Director
Substantial, United States

Substantial is searching for an Associate Design Director to join our growing design team. As an Associate Design Director at Substantial, you will serve as a lead designer in our design strategy department, driving innovation and building digital products for clients ranging in size from private to public, non-profit to start-up, small business to enterprise.

You will be responsible for turning product requirements into useful and delightful digital solutions for our client partners. A successful candidate will have a passion for innovative user interfaces and possesses a strong capacity for communicating solutions visually through sketches, user flows, wireframes, functional prototypes, high fidelity screens, etc. as necessary. The successful candidate has excellent communication and interpersonal amp; analytical skills, including the ability to present design concepts clearly and persuasively to colleagues, partners, stakeholders, and especially to senior executives. Lastly, this candidate thrives in a highly collaborative environment, possessing a strong grasp of Agile project management, as well as the ability to relentlessly advocate for both the business needs as well as the end beneficiary the given product or service aims to serve.

We’re open to candidates not based in Seattle (within three hours of the Pacific time zone is preferred), and will support remote work even when there isn’t a global pandemic, provided you’re able to travel on occasion.

In the past you have:

• Experience building new products, setting strategy, and driving execution
• Acted as a strategic individual contributor on cross-discipline teams, contributing to - and at times leading- the full design process from concept development to wireframes and high-fidelity specs
• Aligned colleagues and clients on product goals, leading teams to achieve the highest level of performance without compromising timelines and team harmony
• Set quality standards, aligned with a deep understanding of the client’s goals, business requirements and constraints, for qualitative foundational amp; evaluative research, insight articulation, experience model development (e.g., customer journeys, behavioral archetypes, service blueprints, etc.), design and testing
• Successfully worked in a fast-paced, deeply collaborative, agile environment, while also leading process improvement efforts
• Led and contributed to the creation of meaningful customer/user feedback loops through build, test, and learn cycles
• Understood, analyzed, and applied first-hand or second-hand research to product decisions
• Effectively designed and managed user research and usability testing
• Led and contributed to prioritizing MVP features, building a backlog, and creating strategic product roadmaps

Requirements

• Preferred Qualifications:
  • 3+ years of professional human centered design ‘thinking amp; doing’ consulting experience with specific experience in one or more areas of the product development lifecycle. Such as: Visual Designer, Interaction Designer, Service Designer, Product Designer, Design Strategist or Experience Designer
  • Strong leadership and collaboration skills, with the ability to guide high performing teams using persuasion and influence (rather than command and control)
  • Strong systems thinking, and the ability to understand complex feature and marketplace dynamics
  • Eager to involve clients in the design process, highly responsive to feedback, and excited to present your team’s ideas in front of key stakeholders.
  • Able to be flexible and manage priorities in a high-productivity environment with tight deadlines
  • A constant drive to stay up-to-date with the latest industry news and developments.
  • A deep appreciation and talent for applying simple solutions to complex problems
  • Experience mentoring junior colleagues, providing guidance and support for their growth through thoughtful, specific and actionable feedback
  • Academic, professional, or life experience from outside the design field that enriches your perspective as a designer
  • Front-end development experience (HTML, CSS, JavaScript) a plus
  • Worked collaboratively with people across backgrounds, cultures, or beliefs
  • Internal commitment to improving racial literacy
  
  Basic Qualifications:
  • Bachelor’s degree in Human Factors, HCI, Design, Cognitive Science, Graphic Design, Interaction Design, similar field of study, or equivalent practical experience.
  • 5+ years of experience designing and delivering products, from start to finish, in an Agile environment amongst expert cross-functional teams
  • An online portfolio or samples of work demonstrating experience creating intuitive end-to-end, user-centered design solutions and

Job Rewards and Benefits