Experience Design Manager
Innovation, collaboration, and success: at OnDeck, We Make It Happen. We’ve changed the way small businesses access financing. With the spirit of a fintech start-up and the stability of a larger organization, OnDeck helps customers achieve their ambitions while leading in the small business lending space. We operate with a one team mindset, supporting each other and celebrating our wins together. If you’re looking for a fast-paced, entrepreneurial, inclusive environment where you can make an impact on our customers and business, OnDeck could be the place for you.
We’re working to transform the OnDeck service to better meet the financial needs of small businesses. Our design team builds financial products and user experiences for small business owners as well as internal products to support our team. We utilize user-centered methods to help to collaboratively design solutions that improve our experience across the customer journey.
The Experience Design Manager is a research leader, design strategist and design thinking advocate who will provide direction and mentorship to our design team and ensure the delivery of high-quality digital experiences for our customers.
As the Experience Design Manager at OnDeck, you will:
- Uncover user needs through research, develop deep insights, generate concepts, and craft how people will interact with the products and services we design
- You are an expert at synthesizing research findings to cultivate a deep understanding of user needs, behaviors and motivators.
- Frame design solutions and explain thinking and rationale in a compelling way and lead the communication of research findings, conceptual ideas, detailed design, and design rationale
- Work cross-functionally with product management, analytics, engineering and marketing teams to understand user and business needs, identify design opportunities, envision meaningful new experiences, create a business case, evaluate the necessary enablers to bring an experience to life, and create roadmaps for execution.
- Lead the thinking on strategic projects alongside product managers to gather customer insights and influence product direction.
- Be a trusted strategic partner that works closely with the product team to identify research topics and guides the design of quantitative and qualitative research studies. Bring the right generative and evaluative research tools and a strong understanding of strengths and shortcomings of different research methods (quantitative and qualitative), including when and how to apply them during each product phase.
- Plan and organize research initiatives. As needed, moderate user sessions on premise and off-premise, work with study participant recruiting service providers.
- Create method and deliverable artifacts that define service & product strategy as a way of working across the organization.
- Share best practices & new techniques with others in the organization and help to build a human-centered design culture in everything we do and contribute to our culture of continuous learning.
- (Most importantly!) Approach your work with a sense of genuine curiosity, collaboration, and good humor.
Qualifications to make it happen:
Required
- At least 7 years of experience in user research
- Extensive knowledge of and experience with driving and applying user-centered design processes. Accustomed to working collaboratively with cross-functional team members
- Advanced ability to directly create or lead the creation of experience maps, user journeys and service blueprints, interaction models, flows and wireframes
- Advanced ability to directly create or lead the creation of business cases and roadmaps for service or product concepts
- Extensive knowledge of rapid prototyping methods, ranging from paper sketching to digital prototypes
- Proven knowledge and experience with a wide variety of qualitative and quantitative user research activities, like ethnographic field studies, persona development, experience mapping, concept validation, usability testing, eye-tracking and card sorting
- Feel comfortable working with data analytics and AB/multivariate testing, as well as collaborating with data analysts
- Strong background in design thinking
- Experience analyzing logs of user behavior, and applying meaningful statistics to the results
- Can synthesize and communicate insights from multiple sources and communicate research findings in a compelling and persuasive way
- Excellent communication, problem solving and collaboration skills
- A passion for OnDeck’s mission of serving small businesses
- Bachelors degree in Interaction or Service design required
Preferred
- A master’s degree or equivalent professional experience in human-computer interaction, software design, cognitive psychology or another social science field
- Demonstrated experience creating new test methods/setups to address the needs of unusual/challenging tests
- Financial industry expertise
About OnDeck:
OnDeck is the largest online small business lender in the U.S. Since 2007, we’ve issued over $12 billion in loans for many business needs including inventory purchase, equipment acquisition, hiring, and general corporate purposes. Serving more than 700 industries throughout the country, OnDeck has been trusted by over 100,000 small businesses by providing them with a term loan or line of credit to help them build a growing and thriving enterprise.
Click here for a glimpse inside our offices
At OnDeck, it’s We Before Me. We support each other and we love seeing people succeed. That’s why we offer a competitive and comprehensive benefit program with a variety of options and opportunities. We offer:
- Flexible Paid Time Off; Paid Sick Days; Paid Holidays; Paid Birthday
- Comprehensive Healthcare (Medical/Dental/Vision/Life Insurance)
- Wellness Subsidy and Mental Health Coaches
- Voluntary Auto/Home/Pet Insurance
- Educational Reimbursement; Flexible Working Arrangements
- 401k Matching, Loan Consolidation, Employee Stock Purchase Program
- Paid Parental Leave and Sabbaticals
- Affinity Groups and Volunteer Events
We are going to ask you to talk about your accomplishments. Here are some of ours:
- Built in Colorado, Top 100 Digital Companies in Colorado, 2015, 2016, 2017
- Built in NYC’s 100 Best Places to Work, 2019
- Colorado SHRM Best Companies to Work For in Colorado, 2015
- Crain’s New York Best Places to Work, 2013, 2014, 2015
- Crain’s New York Business Fast 50, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017
- Denver Business Journal Largest Technology Employers in Denver, 2019
- Denver Business Journal Best Places to Work, 2019
- FinTech Breakthrough Award – Best Overall LendTech Company, 2018
- Fortune 50 Best Workplaces for Diversity, 2016
- Fortune 50 Best Small and Medium Companies to Work For, 2016
- Fortune 30 Best Workplaces in Finance and Insurance, 2016
- Fortune.com and Great Place to Work 100 Best Workplaces for Millennials, 2015
- Fortune/Great Place To Work Great Rated! People’s Picks: 20 Great Workplaces in Financial Services, 2015
- Forbes’ America’s Most Promising Companies, 2013, 2014
- Great Place to Work Certification, 2017, 2018, 2019
- Inc. 500|5000, 2013, 2014
- Inc. Hire Power, 2013
- Lending Tree’s Top Rated Customer Satisfaction, Q1 2018
- Selling Power Magazine Best Company to Sell For, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019
- US News & World Report, “Best Unsecured Business Loans of 2018” – Best for Term Loans
- Washington Post Top Places to Work, 2019
- WorldatWork, 2017 Seal of Distinction
- TalentDesk’s Best Large Companies for Computer Science Jobs in Arlington, Virginia: #1, 2019
- TalentDesk’s Best Companies for Customer Service Jobs in Denver, Colorado: #1, 2019
- TalentDesk’s Best Companies for Quality Assurance Jobs in Denver, Colorado: #1, 2019
As part of our dedication to maintaining an inclusive and diverse workforce, OnDeck provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability or genetics. In addition to federal law requirements, OnDeck complies with applicable state and local laws governing nondiscrimination in employment in every location in which the company has facilities. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation and training.
OnDeck expressly prohibits any form of workplace harassment based on race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, genetic information, disability, or veteran status. Improper interference with the ability of OnDeck’s employees to perform their job duties may result in discipline up to and including discharge.
**No external recruiters or agents, please.**