We are working hard to make The Times’ tools for innovation in digital storytelling simple, powerful, and bulletproof — and to put them directly in the hands of 1,600 journalists. We are looking for a talented Lead Product Designer to work closely with the team’s design director and four other designers to execute the vision, user experience, and visual design of new tools our newsroom uses every day.
In 2020, your primary project will be to rethink how we create and publish the home page of The Times: what stories we show to whom, on what platforms, and why, when, and how. You’ll be collaborating closely with our editors to examine, refine, and at times rethink the workflow of how we produce the story of the day.
Responsibilities:
- Direct a team of designers to design the new tool that Times editors will use to create the home page, across our website and native apps
- Balance contributing individual work and setting direction for others
- Guide two other product designers on your team, directing and facilitating their day-to-day work (You will not be a people manager at current time, but interest in management is a plus)
- Support high-level product strategy, ensuring we’re asking the right questions and solving for distinct needs.
- Partner with the team’s product manager, as well as project and tech leads, to bring ideas from early stages to well-defined, actionable projects
- Conduct user experience research with our internal users, including reporters, editors, and web producers
- Create user flows, wireframes, prototypes, and production-ready visual designs for tools that our newsroom uses to curate our homepage and coordinate coverage across platforms
- Collaborate with engineers on implementing the features you design, and ensure the visual and user experience quality of our output
- Represent your team’s work to leadership groups at the company
- Contribute to our new design system, Ink
Qualifications:
- Minimum of 5 years of experience in product design, including substantial work designing interactive products or tools
- A portfolio that shows clear UX solutions, strong visual design, and the ability to make sense of complex workflows
- Excellent sensibility for microinteractions and typography
- Understanding of how data and qualitative research inform product and design decisions
- Able to communicate design effectively to a variety of audiences
- Enjoy working on a cross-discipline team alongside newsroom editors, engineers, product managers, project managers, and other designers
- A shown understanding of modern HTML & CSS, and grasp of current methodologies for building web applications
- Enthusiasm for designing tools and for the mission of The New York Times
Applications without portfolios will not be considered.
When you apply, please share samples of your work, focusing on projects that showcase:
- Your experience with complex, multi-user workflows
- How you’ve designed clear and thoughtful UI and microinteractions
- Your process for problem-solving (rather than just polished, final design work)
- Varying types of design artifacts, and your sensibility of which design exercises meet a particular purpose