Director Of User Experience

Job Description

Employees

Currently, all employees are working remotely except for select roles that have an in office requirement. We value the health and safety of our people above all else, and our office re-openings will remain

contingent on the course of the COVID variants and federal, state and local safety guidelines and

recommendations. As we look forward, the majority of our employees will have flexibility that allows them to choose a predominantly remote, predominantly in-office, or hybrid setup.
Our official in-office locations in the United States includes LA, NYC, Stamford, and Chicago, and we have several other states in which employees may work remotely if their role isn't one that requires them to be in or near the office.

THE DIVISION'S STORY
Were you the first kid on your block to get a PlayStation? Did you foresee the day when movies could be filmed on a phone and TV shows could be viewed on a wristwatch? The Digital team is made up of just such visionaries and early adaptors. We dream up new ideas for gaming, apps, and SVOD initiatives and generate engaging online content for our owned and operated websites. But if all that tech talk makes you glaze over, there's always 45th & Dean, our in-house digital content storytelling hub. It's a collective of talented writers, editors, motion graphics artists and producers who create content across all social media platforms as well as support our Ad Sales and Distribution teams.
Our Editorial function, shared with Marketing, brings the voice, taste, and energy that brings our brands to life beyond linear.

A+E Networks is seeking an experienced, methodology driven, results-oriented, and highly organized User Experience (UX) leader with a passion for all things digital with an emphasis on Web, Mobile, and Connected TV to join our Digital Media team. We are looking for a senior-level professional who will dig in to deeply understand A+E's users and deliver best in class customer-centric experiences across our portfolio that elevate our digital products and meet business objectives.

The Director of UX will be the principal leader of the UX department reporting to the VP, Design. This leadership role will define and drive the UX process as well as lead UX research and methodology across our TV Everywhere (TVE) and Subscription Video On Demand (SVOD) products. In this role, you will direct the future of UX Design and Research and have the opportunity to support and impact A+E's UX team by providing mentorship, career development, and UX leadership. In collaboration with our product teams, the qualified person will lead the creation of digital products from a user's perspective and play a lead role producing beautiful, compelling, and useful products that span across digital platforms and include executions on Web, Mobile, and Connected TV platforms.

The Director of UX should possess the ability to oversee, guide, and direct multiple products across multiple platforms at the same time to ensure a unified experience across the portfolio of digital products.

The ideal candidate must have a portfolio presenting UX solutions for web, mobile, and/or Connected TV applications and demonstrate strong research skills and methods used to uncover and deliver insights.

MORE ABOUT WHAT YOU'LL DO:
• Manage, lead, and mentor UX Designers / Researchers and hold regular 1:1s with team members to provide clear and direct feedback.
• Actively contributing to the open and collaborative culture of the team by facilitating UX-led projects, events, and discussions to spread design thinking and enthusiasm throughout the organization.
• Demonstrate, explain, lead, and execute user experience research methods and identify and prioritize research against product roadmaps.
• Leading the effort to define, develop, and execute diverse research plans and methodologies, analyze findings, and turn findings into actionable insights to inform product design.
• Leading a user-centered methodology and create a shared understanding of user needs.
• Aggregating our research and integrating with data analytics to ensure we have a holistic view of our users and are making the most effective use of our quantitative and qualitative data.
• Through implementation of user research techniques, you'll identify and transform unmet user needs, pain points, and business opportunities into successful enhancements and product launches throughout all phases of the product lifecycle.
• Owning the overall UX voice of the team.
• Review research deliverables that your team creates and provide feedback to ensure high-quality output.
• Exert significant influence on the overall objectives and long-range goals of the UX team.
• Design, recruit, and moderate research studies regularly (both in-person and remote).
• Interview potential UX candidates.

YOUR STORY:

The ideal candidate:
• Can take a step back and see things from a broader perspective.
• Is smart, inquisitive, optimistic, and humble.
• Is creative, empathetic, and dependable.
• Will be able to connect the dots between the needs of users, requirements for business success, and the possibilities of technology.
• Will set new standards of excellence for the UX team.
• Can speak confidently on behalf of the user's needs and defend ideas with user-centered arguments.
• Has excellent communication, presentation, and relationship building skills.
• Can multi-task and manage more than one project and person at a time.
• Will collaborate with team members to push their work to be the best it can be.

Qualifications / Requirements:
• Bachelors or higher degree in Design, Information Design, Interaction Design, Psychology, Cognitive Science, Human-Computer Interaction, or related field. Continued education in UX related programs accepted.
• 10+ years' experience in leading UX design with recent focus on mobile and Connected TV applications.
• 4 years' experience managing, leading, and mentoring UX designers/researchers
• Expert level knowledge in the field of UX design across multiple platforms.
• Extensive knowledge of usability and user research tools and ability to recommend most appropriate techniques, including field research, competitive/comparative analyses, interviews, surveys, benchmarking, card sorts, moderated and unmoderated usability testing, A/B testing, empathy maps, etc.
• Knowledge of surveying tools.
• Subject matter expert in user-centered design, driving a user-centered methodology, and making sure it is included in the design process.
• Expert knowledge of design tools such as Figma, prototyping tools, Optimizely, Amplitude and User Testing.com.
• Proven ability to drive results and effectively make the case for research to inform business decisions.
• Experience communicating user-centered research findings to many stakeholders in a persuasive and engaging way to increase empathy.
• Strong ability to balance and prioritize workload and adjust to shifting business needs/priorities.
• Knowledge of how quantitative research methods work in conjunction with qualitative ones to provide more robust insights.
• Proven ability to move beyond data, getting to valuable insights, and effectively collaborating with product teams to implement research-backed, measurable product improvements.
• A proven record of driving change through UX Research.
• Experience working in an agile environment is a plus.
• Entertainment industry experience a plus.

Jobcode: Reference SBJ-d27157-3-133-160-156-42 in your application.