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Lead UX Designer

A leader in creating deep and engaging experiences on PC and mobile, Jagex was founded in 2001 and is today one of the UK’s biggest and most respected video game developers and publishers.

Famed for its flagship MMOs RuneScape and Old School RuneScape, Jagex has welcomed more than 260million player accounts to its world and created a $1bn lifetime franchise revenue. Today the RuneScape franchise exists beyond running games in live operations; our titles are living games that connect and inspire millions of players, with content and experiences both inside and outside of inexhaustible game worlds.

Both RuneScape and Old School RuneScape, on PC and mobile, offer ever-evolving, highly-active worlds and our community-focussed development ethos empowers players to have a real say in how each game is shaped.

Jagex is expanding and extending its portfolio with fresh franchise titles, new IP and, in 2018 launched Jagex Partners, delivering third-party publishing and operational services exclusively for the living games of the future.

Jagex employs more than 400 people at its Cambridge headquarters and is on the hunt for talented people to work across the business to help the company to achieve yet another year of record growth and player satisfaction.

As a Lead UX Designer, you are team focused and provide both leadership and management to a group of player obsessed and scientifically creative UX designers. You champion user experience design enabling your team to develop and implement the best UX design solution based on the creative vision. You are responsible for the UX team’s delivery and strategy enabling players to discover, access and engage with our products, online services and experiences.

You liaise with production and external development to ensure solid work stream in discipline including hiring and growth with great organizational, scheduling and mentorship skills. You show an ability to look more broadly at product development and strategize accordingly within your discipline. Overall, as a lead you are expected to split time effectively between managing, leading a team and individual contribution while still completing complex tasks within time and to quality.

You champion a healthy, creative environment which unleashes potential in others and facilitates their personal growth and career progression. Part of that will be owning and facilitating feedback and learning mechanisms such as regular individual and team reviews and craft critique sessions.

Key Duties and Responsibilities

• Provide leadership, direction and line management to the UX team
• Responsible for the team’s delivery of the best user experience
• Plan, schedule and structure discipline tasks that feed into a master schedule or product roadmap
• Constantly look for new opportunities to improve our customer experience
• Collaborate with design teams and product owners to create personas, user journeys and experience maps
• Create prototypes and wireframes to deliver an intuitive, efficient and frictionless user experience
• Partner with designers, engineers and developers to successfully implement UX principles and designs
• Continually look for ways to improve the holistic design process, based around customer needs
• Champion UX principles, clearly and effectively communicate the value of sound UX processes to both stakeholders and team.
• Guide product vision by facilitating design-thinking workshops
• Produce documentation as required to clearly communicate research, data, feedback, frameworks or processes.
• Responsible for defining and conducting usability testing, user research and competitor analysis
• Interpret data and qualitative feedback to articulate a scientific, research-based rationale which enables developers to clearly identify user needs and possible solutions.
• Actively level up UX thinking across the product team
• Execute analysis of new and emerging technologies and techniques to better support the business and our customers
• Able to time manage, prioritize and track both themselves and direct reports
• Level up junior to senior UX designers through teaching and mentoring
• Support, promote and build good team and studio morale in an open, creative environment
• Contribute toward discipline hiring plans and recruitment process

Essential Skills

• Numerous shipped products at a senior or lead level with managerial responsibilities
• In-depth knowledge of modern interaction design principles
• Expert proficiency in craft software (e.g. UXPin, Balsamiq, InDesign, Figma)
• Strong portfolio of work demonstrating user-centric design projects
• Previous experience of numerous full cycle product development (including prototype and pre-production)
• Understanding of UI system design and architecture
• Fluency with using analytics, user testing & research to inform creative processes and decision making (quantitative and qualitative analysis methods, biometrics, user questionnaires etc.)
• Ability to collaborate with technical teams on complex development tasks
• Strong understanding of modern UX technologies, theories, architecture, and development techniques
• Understands and practices agile/lean product development mindset
• Strong delegation, coordination, and collaboration skills
• Comfortable mentoring and teaching colleagues and those more junior in craft
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Able to collaborate closely with engineers in support of implementing designs in a robust and standards-compliant way
• *BONUS* Interface programming (HTML/ CSS/ JavaScript)
• *BONUS* Education/ Qualification in User Psychology, Interaction Design or similar

- Flexible Working

- Bonus Scheme

- Private Health Care

- Gym Membership

- Generous Pension Contributions

- Life Insurance

- Free Cycle Repair

- Income Protection

- Dental Plan

- Free Fruit and Drinks

- Subsidised Canteen

Feel like you fit this role, but don’t meet all the requirements? We strive for fresh perspectives, so as long as you can demonstrate how your attitude and other abilities might make up for any gaps we would welcome your application!

Jagex are an equal opportunities employer and positively encourages applications from suitably qualified and eligible candidates regardless of sex, race, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy or maternity, religion or belief.