Freelance Product Design Lead

At ustwo we design and build digital products, services, and immersive experiences that people love and businesses need. We are seeking an experienced freelance Product Design Lead to join the team in our New York Studio.

We believe passionately that diverse teams help us make better services and products. We actively hire for cultural growth. We welcome people of all ages, stories and backgrounds.

About the role

As a Design Lead at ustwo you’ll provide guidance to individual designers and teams, bestowing vision and direction during projects, from discovering value to validating propositions, all the way through to delivering products and services.

ustwo is known for exceptional design craft — we are looking for a Design Lead that can help lead teams to create experiences that not only express brand values within products but resonate emotionally with audiences.

You’ll be acting as a discipline lead within the project, working alongside a collaborative and talented team to uncover, validate and deliver new experiences across native, web and mobile platforms. You will often be hands-on during projects, working, supporting and delegating to other designers, developers, and delivery coaches to define, build, and iterate solutions for our fantastic clients and partners.

This project will involve a high level of client stakeholder interaction, so clear communication skills are critical.

Location

This role could be hybrid with 1-2 days in our Brooklyn studio, or fully remote if in EST time zone but we'd love you to work alongside us!

Time frame

This role is expected to potentially start in early June for 8 weeks. There is opportunity for this role to continue depending on project outcomes and bandwidth.

Requirements

• Able to communicate with and understand clients’ business goals, and technical limitations, working within those constraints to unpack the challenge and explore innovative solutions for users and drive value for clients
• Skilled in identifying and prioritizing the right problems to solve and alignments across teams and clients
• Adept in both qualitative and quantitative research methods to fill knowledge gaps, quickly translate insights, unearth opportunities, and translate complex requirements into tangible design artifacts.
• Ability to craft designs that are grounded in user-centric decision making including experience journeys and end-to-end flows.
• Capable of high-level strategic thinking and conceptual exploration across the product ecosystem, while also detail-oriented enough to be able to get into the weeds of the designs and able to guide your team accordingly.
• Skilled in crafting compelling interaction models and design solutions through visual expression, design, and prototyping
• Comfortable with experimentation and clear understanding when to experiment and where to use defined solutions.
• Has a product mindset and is able to make pragmatic trade-offs while holding a bigger strategic goal in mind.

Why we’re excited about you

• As a skilled storyteller and proactive communicator, you effectively convey every phase of your design process and tailor your communication to suit different audiences.
• You thrive in a collaborative working style. You’re skilled in facilitating workshops and design reviews with clients and team members and ensure everyone's perspectives are heard and incorporated.
• You enjoy working through ambiguity and are able to adapt and guide your team through any difficult or changing client needs.

This is a full-time/40-hour a week contract position. Please provide a link to your online portfolio as well as any released products or experiences you have contributed to.