Design Lead / Manager

Introduction
As IBM Z Designers you are part of a community of innovators creators and design thinkers. Our systems power the world’s most important industries and our clients are the architects of the future. Transforming our business to deliver on that future is at the heart of our Design mission.
As an IBM Z Design Lead you will be responsible for defining and implementing design strategies across a family of products and creating the conditions for successful collaboration at the product and portfolio level. With a deep understanding of your portfolio’s strategy and goals you connect the dots across its products and communicate the overall product vision to your design team. You have a passion for technology and the capacity to learn and understand complex technical details. You are seen as subject matter expert with unique knowledge in UX design practices and have the capability to work independently on one or more complex projects with minimal guidance. You motivate others to do great work and help develop the skills of the designers on your team.

As this role has team management responsibilities you will work with Design Leadership to set high quality standards for the design practice the designers on the team and the products they deliver. You’ll use your management experience to inform and execute the knowledge talent and career development needs of your design team. You will work closely with design managers from across the Global team as well as with peers in product management and engineering to enable the team to build superior client experiences.

Your Role and Responsibilities
Strategic Responsibilities

• Lead design efforts for a product portfolio; prioritize design assignments for a family of products to align with business strategy and available resources.
• Influence functional strategy on multiple products.
• Envision a portfolio-wide design strategy.
• Determine establish and measure goals which influence the business strategy and processes of a family of products.
• Develop advanced knowledge of the technologies product value and value proposition of the family of products.
• Influence at the appropriate levels in the business (management development product management).

Cross-Functional Responsibilities

• Gain a deep understanding of design product management and development practices.
• Engage 3-in-a-box (Design/OM/Development) leaders and stakeholders on the impact of design by determining where design can be most valuable; coordinating practices and processes; and advocating for design activities to be done right.
• Work with Agile product team leaders to measure progress and review design outcomes (via playbacks).
• Collaborate with PM and Dev teams to define Experience Roadmap.
• Look for opportunities to standardize tasks and integrate efforts across products.
• Foster cross-brand networking and exchange of information improving access to relevant knowledge.
• Actively participate in product squads by attending playbacks assisting design teams coaching design leaders providing input on the prioritization for a family of products backlogs and driving design consistency and quality.
• Align the design teams on the release and business goals.
• Develop strong negotiation skills and know what to compromise on.

Functional Responsibilities

• Orchestrate experiences across products.
• Define user experience goals and design principles.
• Develop vision prototype outlining business and user needs.
• Review experiences for gaps details and UX heuristics.
• Develop and execute UX Metrics assessments.
• Serve as a subject matter expert on design.
• Contribute to the strategic application of Design and ensure best practices are implemented.
• Establish benchmarks for design quality inspire and motivate teams to purse design excellence review and critique work for design excellence in craft and execution.
• Develop the leadership skills of designers through servant leadership coaching and mentoring; respond to design team needs and contribute where necessary.
• Advocate for promotions and other forms of recognition for your design team.
• Be involved in hiring decisions (potentially recruitment as well).
• Assist in the onboarding new hires and transfers.
• Contribute to the design profession inside and outside of IBM.
• Contribute to and influence the design culture of IBM Z.
• Demonstrate leadership on IBM Z Design community initiatives.

Required Technical and Professional Expertise
Minimum Requirements: Total 10+ years of industry experience

• A minimum of 3 years of experience in leading diverse design teams and design projects.
• A minimum of 6 years of experience in product or service design.
• A minimum of 3 years of experience working with product managers and engineers.
• A minimum of 6 years of experience in a hands-on UX design role.
• A minimum of 6 years of experience with design tools including analytics tools.
• Demonstrated experience in the design practice cross-functional strategies enterprise technical products and services and mentoring and coaching designers.
• Exposure to Agile processes (e.g. SAFe) enterprise design thinking managing allocation and prioritization discussions and the IBM Universal Experiences.
• Portfolio of projects that demonstrate your skills as a designer.

Required Technical Expertise

• Mastery of UX design skills including wireframing & prototyping
• Mastery of common design tools such as Figma Adobe XD etc.
• Expertise in defining and executing UX Metrics assessments.
• Expertise with standard presentation programs Powerpoint & Keynote.
• Strong portfolio showing a breadth of complex technically-oriented projects.

Preferred Technical and Professional Expertise

• None