At Smashing Ideas, a Luxoft company, our focus is simple: Create products that improve people’s lives in a meaningful way. Our rich legacy of creating digital experiences and products that bring joy, coupled with our Motivational UXTM framework, helps companies bring transformational digital products and services to market.
Our clients, who become extensions of our teams, are change agents themselves. Some are in the early stages of digital transformation, while others have established practices. Regardless of their stage, we serve as their catalyst for innovation.
We are seeking a passionate, experienced design leader with a deep understanding of human centered design to promote design innovation with a wide range of projects and clients. As the Head of Design, you will provide a multidisciplinary, holistic perspective and guide your teams in translating business goals and customer needs into compelling, elegant, and engaging experiences.
This role requires 10+ years of experience working in the digital product design space.
This role will be remote until current pandemic is under control.
Lead the Design Team
Grow and manage a successful and profitable design practice for the company while inspiring people to do their best work
In partnership with Offering Leadership, evolve the organizations’ digital product design and develop offering, and evangelize its value through internal and external channels
Manage, mentor, and grow a team of 10+ highly talented designers with an eye on scaling the exceptional quality we strive for at Smashing Ideas
Identify areas of opportunity for our design practice, including potential services, capabilities, or critical investments
Manage staffing plans to balance individual interests with project outcomes, team chemistry, client constraints, and KPIs
Model the behavior that demonstrates our values: Create with Heart, Keep It Real, Paddle Out, Raise the Fun Flag, Ride-or-Die, and Stay Curious
Guide, nurture, and manage direct reports, and be a mentor and advocate for the success of the Design team at large
Evolve the Design team's philosophies, methodologies, processes, techniques and tools, and evangelize them throughout the practice
Be involved in the local design community through meetups or design and networking events, and engage with outside talent to promote Smashing Ideas’ work and culture
Executive-level Strategic Design Direction for Clients
Plan and choreograph workshops, design activities and deliverables for projects and proposals. This may include creative briefs, journey maps, personas and archetypes, design concepts and explorations, visual mood boards, flows, wireframes, prototypes (low-medium-high fidelity), visual comps and assets, and design language systems
Facilitate the collaborative creation of the project vision, and use the vision as a guiding tool to ensure alignment and excellence
Partner with strategy, research, development, and program management leads to ensure solutions are on schedule and deliver real value (including fiscal, experience, and brand value) to users, clients, and Smashing Ideas/Luxoft
Inspire and support designers to create world-class, innovative designs across all facets including UX, information architecture, interaction, motion, animation and UI
Be a player-coach: Be an individual contributor as needed to cover, strengthen, and inspire teams to do their best work in any facet of a project, including design research, workshops, ideation, interaction, UX/UI, prototyping, usability testing, asset production, and delivery
Partner with key client stakeholders to ensure their engagement, contribution, and success
Business Development and Thought Leadership
Drive internal awareness of design trends and emerging technologies to ensure the creation of relevant and future-forward solutions
Personally generate, and guide others to generate, thought leadership content that demonstrates our capabilities and value to current and potential clients
Serve as a partner to Business Development and Marketing, identifying insights and unique perspectives on the market that will help generate new leads
Collaborate on RFP responses and proposals, providing SME-level input and content as part of a response
Where possible, create ways to scale our thought leadership and business development activities.
Smashing Leadership Team
Collaborate with other members of the Smashing Leadership Team to:
Identify, prioritize, and create (or refine) competencies designed to mature and grow Smashing capabilities and offerings
Establish and represent Smashing standards for work and culture.
Teach and mentor cross-functional staff on relevant design practices.
Represent the interests of Smashing capabilities and offerings within our parent organizations, Luxoft and DXC.
Mandatory Skills:
10+ years of design experience, preferably in an agency or client services environment
5+ years managing creative/design teams, including staff planning, hiring, and performance management
A portfolio that demonstrates your expertise in creating stellar digital products and services
A passion for ideation, exploration and problem-solving
A human-centered design approach to user engagement
Ability to clearly communicate and articulate design intent and rationale with compelling reasoning and research
Effectively present work to clients, internal teams, and executives for review and feedback
Strong written communication skills, as it pertains to behavioral archetypes, experience narratives, directional copy, and other related artifacts
A willingness to motivate employees to excel in their own way
An awareness that their own beliefs and filters, as well as that of others, can be limiting and a willingness to challenge assumptions
Seeks critique of work and ideas as opportunities for improvement
Sees the big picture and sweats the details.
Desire to develop bi-directional, inspirational relationships with clients and teammates
BFA or BA in Design, related field or equivalent professional experience
Project or account management experience a plus
This role will be remote until current pandemic is under control.