Manager, Product Design - K-12 - Edtech - Tech

Description

Discovery Education is looking for a Manager, Product Design to lead a team of designers in delivering intuitive, elegant, and functional experiences for our award-winning suite of blended learning K-12 products. In addition to leading a team of 1-3 direct reports, this is a very hands-on design role as well. You will work directly with our researchers, product managers, and engineers to collaboratively ensure success in delivering engaging, effective, and easy-to-navigate educational experiences for students, educators, and administrators. A keen aesthetic sensibility with attention to detail, combined with a user-centered methodology, is critical for success.

In this role, you will have the ability to drive innovation by partnering with internal stakeholders across multiple workstreams — From concepting new features and defining overall strategy, to conducting usability testing to inform iterative product improvements.

This role will sit in our Charlotte HQs with a hybrid schedule.

What You Will Do

• Work with product management and data teams to track the performance of new feature releases to better inform opportunities for continued iteration.
• Consistently advocate for, and reinforce the value of UX, while working closely with cross-functional team members to leverage our design process.
• Help source talent, interview, and review product design candidates to hire a world-class team.
• Lead and facilitate cross-functional collaboration efforts via workshops and/or design sprints to uncover opportunities and solve for key initiatives.
• Provide leadership/mentorship to your team via 1:1s, design reviews, skill development, etc. — Explain career paths and help identify opportunities for growth / Define plans for achieving measurable goals.
• Have a deep understanding of the technology and features in your product and have working knowledge of its integration with the larger DE platform.
• Be a key player in driving the vision of the product forward via constant collaboration with product leads and involvement in key strategy discussions.
• Identify strategic research and testing initiatives within your working team and coordinate directly with product management and UXR to organize research initiatives.
• Improve the happiness and productivity of your team while contributing to, and helping grow our DE design team culture as a whole.
• Present design solutions to internal stakeholders in ways that deepen their understanding of how the design solves the user problem.
• Work with product management to identify and prioritize initiatives that ladder up to higher-level product team and company-level OKRs.
• Work closely with product management and engineering leads to define strategic initiatives, roadmaps, and resource needs for your working team based on upcoming initiatives.

Requirements

• Exceptional leadership ability – You have a true passion for design with an appetite to continually inspire and challenge yourself and others, always a constant advocate for the user.
• You are dedicated to continuous improvement and innovation, and consistently initiate discussions around potential areas of investment and new feature development.
• Possess an understanding of the various product development methodologies (JTBD, Business mapping/Lean Canvas, etc.) and know when/how to integrate them into the design process.
• Experience driving organizational change with cross-functional stakeholders.
• You appreciate the challenge of turning complex problems into simple and engaging experiences, while understanding the importance of designing for accessibility.
• You are a team player with a positive outlook and an entrepreneurial spirit.
• You are a driven self-starter and collaborative design professional who can involve multiple cross-disciplinary team members to get to the best solution.
• Excellent communication, presentation, and interpersonal skills with the ability to clearly articulate solutions within the problem space.
• Ability to lead and mentor a team of 1-3 junior to mid-level Product Designers.
• 6­+ years of product design experience designing for SaaS enterprise applications and/or educational products in an Agile development environment.
• 3+ years in a design leadership role managing direct reports.
• Legal right to work in the United States.

Benefits

• Paid holidays include Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve.
• Annual education and professional development dollars.
• Company-paid life insurance and short- and long-term disability.
• Flexible PTO.
• Generous parental leave.
• Summer hours and company recharge days.
• Pet insurance.
• Company paid volunteer hours.
• Major medical, vision, and dental (multiple choices).

Discovery Education is an equal opportunity employer. Discovery Education is committed to being an employer of choice, not just a good place to work, but a great and inclusive place to work. To that end, we strive to recruit and maintain a workforce that meaningfully represents the diverse and culturally rich communities that we serve. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to their race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, protected veteran status or disabled status or, genetic information.