Job Summary:
The Senior Manager of Design will be leading the primary user experience and visual design team supporting production services across The Walt Disney Studios. This role is responsible for developing and managing a unique team of UX, product, and visual designers who deliver best-in-class products, platforms, and visual communication artifacts for stakeholders across the Studios. The User Experience Design team is a critical group that sits within the Strategic Operations team of the Studio Technology organization.
This role will be highly visible, reporting to the Director of Strategic Operations, and helping drive key strategic initiatives that will create impact at scale.
The ideal candidate for this role is not only deeply passionate about design but also is a culture champion, an effective communicator, a fearless switch-tasker, and an exceptional translator – someone who can take stakeholders needs and empower their team to produce brilliant design work (whether that is a product, platform, or communications artifact) that perfectly captures their needs and elevates the Disney brand.
Responsibilities:
People Management
* Drive an inclusive, supportive, and thriving work environment and team culture
* Build and retain a diverse and representative workforce
* Manage internal team members and external vendors
* Coach the Design team on delivering high-quality work on time and on budget, key skills including collaboration, communication, facilitation, and leadership, and the design process end-to-end
* Manage resources for projects such that it aligns with business needs as well as growth goals for individuals
Design & Technical Leadership
* Elevates the teams standards and delivery in user experience design, visual design, and visual communication
* Partners with the Strategic Operations Director and Design Leads to incorporate strong, user-centered design skills and business knowledge to translate conceptual ideas into exceptional design solutions at scale
* Define, evaluate, and evolve processes to ensure designers are meeting clients expectations and project needs
* Direct and provide technical expertise to user experience designers to produce high quality delivery of key artifacts: requirements gathering, workflows, interactive prototypes, wireframes, etc.
* Direct and provide technical expertise to visual designers to elevate the brand through the high quality delivery of key artifacts: templates, executive-level presentations, style guides, logos, etc.
* Direct the design and development of the UI component and pattern library, shared best practices, tools, style guides, and documentation
* Oversee entire design portfolio and drive client & stakeholder management
* Lead and contribute to user experience standards and collaborates with other TWDC teams to ensure cross-company synergy
Administration & Strategy
* Serve as UX, Visual Design, and Brand Ambassador for Studio Technology
* Establish relationships with new customers and maintain relationships with existing customers, partners, and executive stakeholders
* Justify expenditures for products and tools and manage tool allocations and acquisition
* Set and monitor the budget throughout the fiscal year
* Work closely with leadership to define and execute on the teams strategy, intake process, and model as a shared service organization
Basic Qualifications:
The candidate should have significant professional experience in Interaction Design, User Experience, and/or Visual Design positions to demonstrate the following qualifications:
* Proven success designing world-class branded digital experiences (responsive across mobile, web, TV)
* Strong foundation in visual design and visual communication
* Excellent communication, collaboration, negotiation, and interpersonal skills
* Proven success managing and coaching talented UX and/or visual design teams
* Phenomenal ability to anticipate and design for user needs by incorporating research, strategy, and analytics
* Mastery of UX Design Principles and Interaction deliverables including rapid prototyping, concept diagrams, user scenarios, wireframes, flows, experience maps, design patterns and annotated comps
* Advanced experience with key design tools including InVision, Sketch, Figma, Mural, Adobe Suite
* Experience dealing effectively with non-creative decision makers
* Ability to manage a large project portfolio, work independently, and escalate issues as necessary
* Experience with the agile development methodology and ability to work in a fast-paced, demanding environment with aggressive development schedules
* Excellent visual/verbal communicator with strong presentation and storytelling skills (i.e. ability to present to various levels/groups via compelling presentations and demos)
