Sr Consultant, User Experience (Product Design Lead)

If you're passionate about helping a Fortune 100 company drive their strategy forward through innovative product development and advancing strategic partnerships to protect customers (and their pets), then Nationwide's Strategy and Corporate Development Office might be the place for you! At Nationwide®, “on your side” goes beyond just words. Our customers are at the center of everything we do and we’re looking for associates who are passionate about delivering extraordinary care.

Nationwide User Experience (UX) is hiring a product design lead to play a crucial role in newly formed product teams focused on building and improving our digital experiences. As a senior member of the product team, you will collaborate with your peers in product management and engineering and share responsibility for the entire team’s success. You will drive design from early feature discovery through concepting, usability testing, delivery, and post-launch care & feeding. You will balance a rigorous human-centered approach with the ability to make confident decisions and move the product forward in a fast-paced environment. You will contribute to shaping the vision and defining the roadmap, consulting with lead researchers when appropriate to find opportunities to integrate human insights into the product strategy. As a lead, you will guide and facilitate the work of other designers. 

You excel at sharing, evangelizing and iterating ideas with the team and other stakeholders. You possess a quick and keen understanding of past, current and future design patterns, visual trends, research methodologies, consumer psychology and business strategy. The ability to communicate and influence design solutions that best meet user needs and business objectives is critical. You’ll be counted on for high-level, out-of-the-box thinking. You have the ability to lead a team through the design process and assist researchers with analyzing the results of testing to recommend winning design solutions. 

Key Responsibilities 

 

• Successful collaboration with digital product managers, engineering and other UX designers and researchers in order to achieve the best outcomes. 

• Ability to guide design and iterate concepts based on user needs, leveraging excellent fundamental understanding of UX patterns and best practices. 

• Drive toward exceedingly simple and intuitive designs that engender “delight” by users. 

• Work with researchers to influence and define the research approach to test prototypes directly with users for maximum learnings. 

• Keep a pulse on design best practices and be on top of key design trends within insurance, financial services and technology industries. 

• Anticipate where relevant companies, trends and technologies might be going and inform strategies. 

• Strong ability to generate and communicate compelling and actionable insights, both verbally and visually. 

• Ability to structure ambiguous problems and define tasks needed to bring clarity. 

• Ability to navigate multiple stakeholder groups and influence others. 

 

Preferred qualifications 

 

• Schooled in “design thinking” or the human centered design process, especially the creation of low- to medium-fidelity prototypes and having applied it extensively throughout your career. 

• Ability to effectively convey ideas and jump start conversations through whiteboard sketching and related activities. 

• Relevant user interface design experience with consumer applications in one of the following areas: insurance, financial services, startups and technology companies. 

• Working knowledge of evaluative research methodologies. 

• Exemplary ability to build positive, collaborative relationships across teams and functions. 

• A process mindset, with ability to lead team through the design process to deliver on time and at quality. 

• Solid knowledge of and experience with agile development process. 

 

This role is open to remote work. Candidates local to Columbus would be expected to work in a hybrid capacity.

Compensation Grade: H4

#LI-MS2 #LI-REMOTE

Job Description Summary

Do you shine in at least one core user experience (UX) competency? We have a passion for creating exceptional experiences that have a real impact on people’s live and futures. If you understand the value UX provides in achieving strategic objectives and can articulate that value to cross-functional teams and business partners, we want to know more about you!

As a Senior Consultant in the User Experience organization, you’ll be viewed as an expert with the ability to drive the delivery of outstanding customer experiences. In addition to expertise in one core UX strength (experience strategy, research, information architecture, interaction design, interface design, front-end development, content strategy or design operations), you’ll need to demonstrate a thorough grasp of a couple others. It'll be important to have a deep understanding of the design process and an ability to work in ambiguous discovery phase of identifying the right problem to tackle and the detail delivering desirable products. You’ll also have opportunities to lead project teams to distill complex problems into clear solutions that exemplify standard methodologies and encourage others. You are a visionary and will need to be adept at articulating and defending design decisions in a way that can be understood.

Job Description

Key Responsibilities:

• Consults and collaborates with stakeholders, product managers, technologists, UX peers and others across the company to provide strategic, creative and technical direction.

• Advocates for empathetic, human-centered design. Helps mitigate risk by pursuing work based on insights and an understanding of our users.

• Problem solves, thinks big, influences, and explores divergent ideas while understanding how to converge and build iteratively towards the best solution.

• Designs and recommends innovative multi-platform solutions that balance customer needs with business viability and technical feasibility.

• Participates in and facilitates idea-generating sessions evaluating those ideas with regards to technical feasibility, business viability and human desirability.

• Able to think strategically and connect your work to a larger picture. Helps everyone consider the end-to-end experience and connect the dots.

• Mentors and guides the team in their craft and profession to continually uplift the quality of our work.

• Perceive rapid advancements in technology and how customers expect to interact with our company.

May perform other responsibilities as assigned.

Reporting Relationships: Reports to Manager/Director. May have opportunity to manage a team based on organizational structure.  May also have opportunity to lead matrixed and virtual/project teams.

Typical Skills and Experiences:

  

Education: Undergraduate degree in UX, human-computer interaction, psychology, graphic design, information science, communications or related field preferred.

Experience: Typically, eight or more years professionally practicing some aspect of human-centered design.

Knowledge, Abilities and Skills: Excellent verbal and written communication skills. Comfortable speaking publicly to large groups and explaining design rationale to other parts of the business. Able to leverage data to make informed design decisions. Ability to navigate multiple partner groups, tell compelling narratives and influence others. Owns work with minimal oversight. Very independent and self-motivated. Can provide leadership for all aspects of the design process, as well as areas outside field of expertise.

Excellent communications skills (written and verbal). Clear user experience design focus; proven familiarity with emerging technologies and the ability to integrate new technologies to user experience designs. Strong interpersonal skills; ability to work effectively independently and  in partnership with cross-functional teams. Proven project management skills; ability to perform well on multiple concurrent projects and meet timelines. Strong research, analytical, and troubleshooting skills. Acts as a source of expertise for direction, mentoring and guidance for less experienced team members. Works with development team to resolve technically complex issues requiring alignment across multiple business partners and subject areas. Understand and make progress toward the company’s consumer performance indicator (CPI) and key performance indicator (KPI) goals

Other criteria, including leadership skills, competencies and experiences may take precedence.

Staffing exceptions to the above must be approved by the hiring manager’s leader and HR Business Partner.

Values: Regularly and consistently demonstrates Nationwide Values.

Job Conditions: 

Overtime Eligibility: Not Eligible (Exempt)

Working Conditions: Normal Office Environment. Extended work hours may be necessary during heavier volume work periods. Travel required as necessary.

ADA:  The above statements cover what are generally believed to be principal and essential functions of this job.  Specific circumstances may allow or require some people assigned to the job to perform a somewhat different combination of duties.

We currently anticipate accepting applications until 03/28/2025. However, we encourage early submissions, as the posting may close sooner if a strong candidate slate is identified before the deadline.

Benefits

We have an array of benefits to fit your needs, including: medical/dental/vision, life insurance, short and long term disability coverage, paid time off with newly hired associates receiving a minimum of 18 days paid time off each full calendar year pro-rated quarterly based on hire date, nine paid holidays, 8 hours of Lifetime paid time off, 8 hours of Unity Day paid time off, 401(k) with company match, company-paid pension plan, business casual attire, and more. To learn more about the benefits we offer, click here.

Nationwide is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive culture where everyone feels challenged, appreciated, respected and engaged. Nationwide prohibits discrimination and harassment and affords equal employment opportunities to employees and applicants without regard to any characteristic (or classification) protected by applicable law.

This position could be filled within any of the lower 48 U.S. states.

#marketing

Smoke-Free Iowa Statement: Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company, its affiliates and subsidiaries comply with the Iowa Smokefree Air Act. Smoking is prohibited in all enclosed areas on or around company premises as well as company issued vehicles. The company offers designated smoking areas in which smoking is permitted at each individual location. The Act prohibits retaliation for reporting complaints or violations. For more information on the Iowa Smokefree Air Act, individuals may contact the Smokefree Air Act Helpline at 888-944-2247.

For NY residents please review the following state law information: Notice of Employee Rights, Protections, and Obligations LS740 (ny.gov) https://dol.ny.gov/system/files/documents/2022/02/ls740_1.pdf

Nationwide pays on a geographic-specific salary structure and placement within the actual starting salary range for this position will be determined by a number of factors including the skills, education, training, credentials and experience of the candidate; the scope, complexity and location of the role as well as the cost of labor in the market; and other conditions of employment. If a Sales job, Sales Incentives, based on performance goals are possible in addition to this range.

The national salary range for Sr Consultant, User Experience : $124,000.00-$238,000.00

The expected starting salary range for Sr Consultant, User Experience : $134,000.00 - $202,000.00

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