Remote Design Lead

Summary

Job Description: A Design Lead role at PeopleGrove, a remote-first startup in the B2B SAAS industry for higher education institutions. The role involves leading a team of designers, driving platform enhancements, and creative new feature development.

Responsibilities

• Take on and execute design projects alongside your team, working with writers, engineers, and product managers to test, iterate, and bring amazing designs to life
• Identify and implement strategic design projects. Be proactive in identifying projects, getting buy in, and driving those projects forward, both on your own and with your team
• Get your hands dirty and pick up slack on your team’s design projects when needed. Do the work so the project can move forward
• Model how to do the work when someone is struggling (first me, then we, then you)
• Implement a simple and transparent design process that is consistently utilized to produce high-quality results in collaboration with the broader product and engineering teams
• Help the design team with project prioritization and planning
• Communicate design work to product management, other teams, and product leads
• Outsource: Encourage and train individual team members to manage their own time
• Ensure team members are working on high impact tasks and delivering quality work on time
• Help team members function independently while still being accountable for deliverables
• Foster a collaborative, supportive team culture with reasonable work/life balance, where people are able to work on projects that excite them and help them develop their skills
• Support the team’s growth. Provide feedback and guide team members toward achieving their professional goals and producing world-class product designs
• Craft a vision and roadmap for the design team. Where do we want design at PeopleGrove to be in 6 months? In a year? What larger goals are we working toward?
• Monitor new trends and research in design / UX, and assess how we might utilize them
• Identify gaps in our current design practices and propose solutions
• Ensure you are familiar with other functions at PeopleGrove. Talk to other leaders and team members across the company. Understand how their work impacts yours, and vice versa
• Spend time understanding our users and clients, their pain-points and goals. Become an expert on how people use our tool, what’s working, and what’s not
• Dig into data, watch recorded user sessions, and conduct user surveys and interviews
• Share out what you’ve learned and guide the design team in their own research
• Be the voice of design. Share design perspectives and advocate for design
• Showcase your team’s work. Get the product team excited about what design is working on, and give the designers a chance to show off
• Open the door for designers to actively participate and share their opinions in team and client meetings. Model how to participate and encourage the team to join the conversation