Design Lead

Posted Feb 1

We are open to candidates based in +/- 3 hrs PT

We believe magic happens when thoughtful collaboration and unparalleled expertise come together to turn great ideas into great products. Design Leads at MetaLab play a direct role in that magic. They steer projects in the right direction by leading the day-to-day work internally and managing clients' expectations, while also getting into the files themselves. It’s about high-quality output and outcomes.

As a Design Lead, you’ll have a vested interest in helping other designers find their own groove. Given that our primary focus is product design, a deep understanding of what it takes to get digital products out the door is our first non-negotiable. Beyond that, you’ve established yourself as someone people look up to, and you don’t take that privilege lightly. You’ll still deal in pixels, but you’ll also play an integral role in a project’s success with clear direction, leadership, guidance, and encouragement. You believe that good ideas can come from anywhere, and you actively support your team in making sure everyone is heard.

Responsibilities:

Guide the design process throughout the entire project lifecycle
Drive client presentations and discussions of your team’s work.
Respectfully decline the status quo and push both clients and colleagues outside their comfort zones.
Foster positive client relationships and directly influence client stakeholders.
Work with Project Delivery Managers and Client Partners to scope project requirements.
Help promote an inspiring and inclusive environment for the team.
Coach and mentor Product Designers to determine and work towards desired career growth paths, sharing tailored feedback and guidance, and monitoring overall fulfillment and happiness.
Promote a culture of autonomy balanced with proven ways of working.

Technical Competencies:

UX Design: You’ll create meaningful and enjoyable experiences through UX best practices and innovative approaches. Designing features or flows from conception to prototype, you'll consider how your work impacts a larger ecosystem. Understanding your team's UX strengths, you’ll delegate work accordingly. You’ll guide UX methodologies used by project teams, unblocking teams through exercises and facilitation, and drive innovation within UX experiences.

Visual Design: You produce consistent and coherent work, operating within established visual directions, or creating variations or entirely new solutions. You design with an awareness of implementation constraints and accessibility requirements. You understand the importance of and can create divergent visual design directions, with an ability to rationalize and defend visual design decisions.

Product Strategy: Incorporating product strategy insights will inform decisions to ensure a product's success. You’ll shape a point of view based on research and product inputs, and communicate how strategy drives feature prioritization, defines product roadmaps, and sets measurable goals.

Critique and Collaboration: You will actively and consistently participate in the team's established work-share channels and rituals. Along with following the team's norms for sharing design, you proactively seek feedback from project teams and the wider design team when facing challenges. You unpack feedback into actionable to-dos and are adept at assessing which feedback should (and shouldn't) be acted upon, and you can tactfully articulate why. You strive to provide feedback that is clear, actionable, and productive, and in doing so, contribute to an environment of feedback, growth, and change.

Research: You’ll collaborate with UX researchers, gathering qualitative and quantitative evidence to support design decisions. You understand how research data can help measure the success of the work and leverage research findings to inform design decisions and create user-centered solutions.

Content Design: Words enhance the user experience and effectively solve design problems. Your consideration of content systems or guidelines will help communicate information in the best way to improve experiences. You actively participate in content-led deliverables like taxonomy, naming, value props, and tone of voice.

Selling Design: You have an innate ability to communicate the rationale behind design decisions, showcasing the work in a compelling, clear, and concise way. You take responsibility for preparing and presenting work, crafting a narrative and rationale that considers the audience. You’ll source and cite evidence to support your decision-making and know when and how to address feedback or contribute to conversations about account growth and business development.

Vision: You’ll take responsibility for defining a direction within the product vision, such as creative direction, UX approach, or feature set. Design Leads bring their visionary skills to life through the presentation of design concepts, handling complex client feedback and requirements, iterating on concepts accordingly, and advocating for human-centric design within the context of the Product Vision.

Creative Direction: Through visual communication principles and best practices, you’ll support the overall creative impact of a project. You make purposeful and creative choices in your work and can discuss design choices. As a leader, you’ll guide the entire project team's work, present to clients, and navigate complex client feedback.

Systems Design: You’ll bring the ability to define standards for managing design at scale using reusable components and patterns. You’ll consider the end users of a design system, along with client and user context, ensuring usability, maintainability, and adoption.

Brand Strategy: Brand Strategy lays the groundwork for compelling and richly layered design to be built upon. Design Leads actively participate in brand kickoffs, offering insights and perspectives on exercises and outputs. You’ll partner with Brand to identify gaps, build creative territories, and source accurate and well-considered visual inspiration that communicates larger ideas. As always, you demonstrate a compelling rationale for design decisions.

Qualifications:

5+ years of product design experience at a digital product agency or consultancy, ideally in a lead role.
Demonstrated mastery of UI/UX principles, best practices, and common design tools (read: Figma). Bonus points for interaction design skills (think After Effects, Principle, or Framer, Origami).
A portfolio that reflects your strengths in both UX and visual design skills.
A natural inclination to take the lead and help everyone arrive at a deeper understanding and greater appreciation of the work.
Fluent in translating stakeholder goals, user research, and complex user flows into simple UIs.
Passionate about staying ahead of desktop and mobile best practices, developments and trends in web, mobile and iOS design.
Communication pro, with the ability to deliver compelling design rationales in both client and internal contexts.
Comfortable with ambiguity and client briefs that lead to more questions than answers.
Motivated by feedback, and by the opportunity to improve in your role, in the work, and in how you work together as a team.

Pay Range

While this role can be filled in a variety of global regions, as an organization headquartered in BC, Canada we are required to include the pay range for this role if it were to be filled in BC. This range may be higher or lower depending on the candidate's region and market conditions, when outside of BC.

Expected Pay Range: CAD $130,000 - $170,000

Equal opportunity employer

Research shows that women and other marginalized groups tend to only apply for a job when they meet every single criteria. Does this role sound like it was made for you, yet you don’t check every box? Reach out anyways! We’re an equal opportunity employer and are dedicated to fostering an inclusive and diverse environment for employees from all walks of life. We hire based on talent, and we’re proud of our global perspective.