Design Director

Job Description

Life at Elvie; Meaningful work, Exceptional People

We're Elvie. We create smart products, new solutions, and a fair few taboo-busting conversations while we’re at it. Founded by Tania Boler in 2013, we develop extraordinary innovations designed to improve women’s lives. It's a fascinating and challenging area that requires us to solve problems that no one else has ever tackled before.

At Elvie, you’ll be surrounded by people who want to improve everything and everyone around them. People who are passionate about our mission. People who are driven to solve problems and constantly consider the best ways to improve the health and wellbeing of women.

Find out more about life at Elvie here.

We're deeply proud of our values, which are intrinsic to the way we behave every day. We take them seriously because we want our culture to thrive:

• We make an impact: We’re mission-driven and not afraid to break boundaries. We relentlessly focus on going the extra mile to solve problems.
• We’re fearless innovators: We are passionate, curious, and data-driven. We continuously embrace change and innovation.
• We’re in it together: we fail and learn fast — always as one team — and have fun along the way. We stay authentic and embrace our differences.

Did you know?

In some regions our amazing products are considered to be medical devices. This means we maintain our Medical Device quality management system in compliance with ISO 13485:2016, to support the development of our groundbreaking products

About the role:

Okay, we’ve waffled long enough. So let’s get to the good bit: You.

Reporting to the Chief Product Officer, you'll be responsible for leading our design team, including Industrial Designers, Digital Product Designers, Service Designers, Web and Content Designers. You are the design leader across the end-to-end product experience for Elvie, from pre-purchase on the website, unboxing the packaging, our connected products - both apps and physical products, to self-service on our online channels.

You will be someone with experience within Design Leadership, ideally with both in-house and a consultancy environment, working across multiple projects, where you have guided teams from user research through to delivery. You will be an expert on Human-centred design and Design Thinking principles across Physical, Digital, Experience and Service Design disciplines and be passionate about creating beautiful elegant design solutions.

Good Design is at the core of everything we do, from every customer touchpoint: our connected hardware, website, unboxing experience, user interactions, mobile Applications, digital services, customer portals and services. Our solutions must blend seamlessly into people’s lives, enhancing the everyday and driving user engagement through beautiful, user centric, truly connected, multi sensory products and services. That is how we will deliver our mission to empower women through radical female first technology.

Location: Hybrid working; a mix of working from our Bristol or London office & working remotely

Employment type: Permanent (please note, you must have the right to work in the UK)

What you’ll be doing at Elvie:

Design cutting edge connected products:

• You will work with our Product teams designing innovative connected products, collaborating closely with your counterparts - the Product Director, Research and Engineering Director to define the product experience vision, and input into company strategy
• Direct the experience for ranges of new product categories and product features
• Coach and provide feedback on your team’s performance, helping them to develop clear career development goals and action plans on how to achieve them
• You are comfortable working with research and data analytics tools, and able to mentor your team to apply them to the design process, in order to improve the user experience of existing product features
• Help guide user research and interpret and explain insights gained from this research
• Constructively review the work of multi craft designers
• Ensure a collaborative aligned design approach with Brand and Creative.

Design beyond the products:

• Work across teams to map and design experiences that transcend individual product usage
• Help coordinate designers across the company to ensure they are aligned and delivering towards our short and long term strategy, from web, packaging, app, product and service
• Identify service areas that have been neglected and require attention
• Analyse problems in existing services identify causes and build solutions
• You will help create an environment, where developing first-class solutions in an enjoyable atmosphere, is the goal
• Grow the Elvie design community, continuing to focus on collaboration and peer support

Requirements

• At least 10 years of commercial experience as a user-centred designer of products and/or services
• Significant experience leading and managing design teams through building end-to-end solutions, including Industrial Design, Digital Product Design, Service Design and Content Design
• Experience working with developers, software and backend teams to define the technical requirements to enable great user experiences.
• The ability to visualise and create digital eco systems of interconnected user needs and experiences
• Experience working in various hands-on design roles in your career and subsequently developing into a design leadership role, in an end-to-end design product/service environment
• An eye for user behaviour and the ability to think like a user
• You have an in-depth understanding of how to design inclusive, equitable, and accessible means for our products across all touchpoints
• Solid experience of UX design, thinking in flows, service design and a solid understanding of its principles, through physical or digital platforms
• Excellent communication skills - able to explain ideas and concepts in a way that non-designers and non-technical people understand
• Experience negotiating important design decisions with senior internal and external stakeholders
• An empathetic leader, who nurtures and empowers the team. Elvie culture is something we are proud of and we encourage inclusive and fair ways of working
• You understand how to translate a company strategy into actionable holistic design principles
• You enjoy problem-solving and possess the ability to translate business problems into creative and compelling experiences at both the feature and service levels.

Other skills and experience you might have:

• Knowledge of accessibility guidelines including the W3C standards
• Experience of working in cross-functional teams
• Working in agile development cycle and design sprints

Benefits

We're on an exceptional journey. And we can offer you a genuinely purpose-led career with a culture built on trust, autonomy, and flexibility. In addition, we'll give you:

• Lots of flexibility: whether it’s working from home, doing the school run, or life admin, we understand that flexibility is essential, and we trust you to do the right thing for you and us
• Share options: we want everyone to have a stake in our success
• 25 days’ annual leave, plus bank holidays
• 8 extra life leave days; getting married, moving house, menopause or just things that you can’t put a label on that matter to you
• 5=10 leave: 10 days’ additional leave on your 5th and 10th years of service!
• £100 contribution to your home working set up to spend as you see fit
• An annual personal development allowance of £200 and unlimited access to our learning and development platform, Learnerbly
• Generous parental leave policies; maternity & adoption (16 weeks at full pay, then 8 weeks paid at 75% followed by 15 weeks at SMP rate.), paternity/partner (6 weeks at full pay to take at any point during the first year of your child’s life), shared parental leave
• Healthcare plans, life insurance, and an employee assistance program for you and your family
• A tax-efficient group pension scheme
• Group income protection; protect your salary if you get sick
• A free Elvie trainer for you to keep or give away when you join
• Generous employee and friends & family discounts on Elvie products
• Wellbeing support from YuLife and access to SmartHealth app with unlimited GP appointments for you and your family, plus various well-being initiatives throughout the year
• Lovely offices in great locations, with drinks and snacks provided, along with fun social events

Belonging at Elvie

At Elvie, we believe having diverse teams in which everyone can be their authentic self is key to our success. We encourage people from all backgrounds to apply and we don't discriminate based on race, colour, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, marital status, disability or age.

If you need any support with your application, please get in contact with us: elvie@jobs.workablemail.com or 0203 884 7223.

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