Senior Product Designer
About Catchafire
Catchafire is a full service, on-demand solution designed to address the wide-ranging and complex needs of nonprofits by connecting them with talented pro bono professionals. We partner with major funders (read more here) to provide unlimited access to Catchafire to tens of thousands of nonprofits ready to invest in the growth of their organizations and the impact of their service.
Our mission is simple: catalyze positive social change by building a stronger nonprofit sector fueled by talent abundance. Here are some ways to get to know us better:
ABOUT THE ROLE
Catchafire is looking for a Senior Product Designer to join our growing User Experience/Design team working on our evolving digital platform. Our platform is a dual-sided marketplace supporting the needs of two vastly different audiences - skilled volunteers and nonprofit organizations, making it a unique and challenging opportunity from a UX perspective.
This role will act as lead designer on the platform-focused UX design team. It requires someone who is a critical thinker that can take an interactive solution from concept to full fidelity design specifications. They will be responsible for leading the rebranding of the platform Front end as well as creating ongoing new features and improvements based on research and user validation. They should have deep knowledge of UX best practices and principles and be able to apply them appropriately to solve for user needs. They should care about using UX design responsibly to make the world (and our customers’ experience) a better place.
This role reports to the User Experience Director.
Attributes
- Strategic Thinker: You think about solutions from all perspectives considering the business and user needs as well as technical feasibility.
- Persuasive Communicator: You can communicate your interactive design solutions to product owners as well as engineers, providing a rationale for design decisions based on UX best practices and design principles
- Pragmatic Problem Solver: You can find a balance between defending your vision and finding alternative solutions when needed.
- Humility: You can take critiques of your work well and respond to feedback thoughtfully without offense. You constantly strive to improve your skills, knowledge, and personal development.
RESPONSIBILITIES
Strategy
- Partner with UX Director, Product Managers, and Engineering Leads to define and maintain the product roadmap
- Work with the UX director to define the experience strategy, prioritize platform optimizations and hone primary engagement flows
Feature & Enhancement Design
- Work collaboratively with product owners, UX Director and stakeholders to conceptualize and design solutions that improve and build upon the product experience
- Conduct competitive and comparative research to inform new features
- Wireframe new concepts and create user flows of complex interactions
- Create interactive prototypes for user validation
- Plan and conduct usability testing to validate designs and ensure solutions are effective, intuitive, and usable and iterate designs based on the results
- Efficiently & effectively utilize patterns and components from our library to solve user stories and business requirements
- Create high-fidelity designs of features that include all states and variables that interactions must support
- Create technical specifications to hand off to the development team
- Work closely with developers to ensure designs are implemented with accuracy and quality to provide a frictionless experience for users
- Conduct QA of developed features and enhancements
EXPERIENCE / BACKGROUND
Ideal candidates must have:
- 5+ years working as a product designer, UX designer, interaction designer, or web designer
- Experience working in an agile environment
- Working knowledge and use of design pattern libraries and frameworks
- Experience working on responsive sites that look great across multiple devices
- Knowledge of WCAG accessibility standards and ability to spec work according to accessibility guidelines
- Has expert skills with Figma, Sketch or equivalent design software
- Ability to take a user-centered design approach to solve problems
- Experience documenting functional requirements and design specifications
- Experience working directly with developers
- Must be able to share an online portfolio of interactive project work or equivalent
- Familiarity with or interest in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), and specifically how these concepts manifest in a professional setting
Nice to have:
- Experience planning and conducting usability tests
- HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript skills
- Experience volunteering or using design for social good
If our values resonate with you, email your resume to [email protected]. Please specify "Senior Product Designer"in the subject, and include short answers (150 words or less) to the following questions in lieu of a formal cover letter:
- Why is design for social impact important and why does it matter to you?
- Include a link to your portfolio or equivalent
Catchafire’s office is based in NYC, though we will be working remotely as long as COVID-19 persists. We consider our employees’ safety as a top priority and we will continue to assess our return date and when we will resume work travel as the situation progresses. We also provide accommodations to help with home office set up.
This role may be remote full time, with the expectation that the employee is willing and able to travel to the NYC office periodically as deemed necessary and beneficial.
Catchafire is committed to creating a diverse environment and is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, or veteran status. We are also welcoming to any reasonable accommodations that can be made for candidates in our hiring process.
Apply here