At InStride, we’re pioneering a new approach to workforce education. Our mission is to enable employers to provide life-changing education to their employees in partnership with the highest-quality global academic institutions. We unlock business and social impact to transform companies and people for the future. 

We believe that a company’s richest resource is their employees, and that investments in people yield the highest returns for individuals, businesses, and society as a whole. That’s why every InStride employee is eligible to enroll in 1,700+ online certificate and degree programs through our Step Forward program. Unlike traditional tuition reimbursement programs, InStride covers your tuition upfront, regardless of your course of study, degree type, or school. The Step Forward program, along with InStride’s best-in-class employee benefits, are available to all employees from the day they join InStride. 

Read further to see how you can be part of the movement to drive businesses and society forward through life-changing, best-in-class workforce education.

Role Overview

We are looking for an Associate Director, UX who wants to be a part of building products that create meaningful impact in the world! You will join a large, hands-on product and design team working on sophisticated, eCommerce-like education and training products for learners, as well as reporting and administrative products for corporations. Leading UX design and strategy for our multidisciplinary teams, you are bringing a deep understanding of how to balance user, business, and technology requirements, a relevant content strategy for large, eCommerce-like experiences.

We are looking for a leader to mentor and guide product, UX, and content designers working within cross-functional product teams to generate relevant, impactful insights, product strategies, detailed information architecture, early-stage design concepts, and end-to-end design systems. Working in partnership with the design and product leadership, you will help grow, innovate, and support the UX design practice across InStride.

The preferred candidate has experience working in a fast-paced environment, handling a diverse workload, encouraging a thoughtful, collaborative approach to experience design, and is deeply aligned with InStride's mission. This is an excellent opportunity to join the team, creating fulfilled lives and thriving enterprises and communities — all joined by the power of education!

InStride is based in Los Angeles, CA. This position can be remote in one of the approved states listed below.

Note: To be considered, you must provide a link to a portfolio showcasing your experience.

Key Responsibilities

• Investigate and understand InStride’s business, learner, and corporate partner needs, and drive the exploration and articulation of a system design and narrative flow that will help all actors accomplish their goals
• Lead design research, as well as provide key partner input on relevant product analytics and market research initiatives
• Be responsible for the creation of journey and experience maps, detailed system maps, key user flows, medium to high-fidelity wireframes, research protocols, discussion guides and synthesized, meaningful research reports, use cases, and scenarios, personas, and detailed design systems to support the development of final design solutions
• Champion a comprehensive approach to design, and craft clear narratives and goals for the multidisciplinary team to rally around and deliver against
• An eloquent rationale for InStride’s approach to UX design at an executive level and defend design decisions in the context of the needs of our customers
• Define and craft the vision for the UX practice at InStride
• Proactively maintain a high level of knowledge and expertise in digital technologies, tools, and UX trends, regularly sharing insights with the team to add to the collective InStride knowledge and capabilities
• Continuously hone your leadership and mentor skills to ensure you optimally empower team members and get the best out of your team
• Estimate, scope, plan and lead UX and product design work
• Lead process and documentation improvement initiatives
• Foster a positive, connected multidisciplinary team culture

Ideal Profile

• Bachelor's degree in design-related field preferred, but not required
• 7+ years of industry experience (education experience a plus)
• 2+ years team management or team lead experience
• Extensive experience practicing user-centered UX design methods and techniques
• Extensive experience working on design systems for sophisticated software, transactional or eCommerce experiences
• Extensive experience prioritizing, planning, and leading generative design research to drive strategy and evaluative user research initiatives, including but not limited to: Jobs-to-be-done (JTBD) ranking surveys, concept validation, and usability testing
• Experience focusing on outcomes through the Jobs-to-be-done (JTBD) framework and helping a multidisciplinary team identify which goals users truly “hire” your product over existing solutions
• Experience leading a mix of FTEs, contractors, and vendors across large-scale, long-term projects, with a regular cadence of results shipped timely and on-budget
• Outstanding verbal communication skills, with experience addressing all levels of the organization
• Excellent analytical and process-building skills
• Excellent writing skills
• Experience prioritizing and estimating UX work
• Experience collaborating with colleagues in Product, Design, Marketing, Technology, and Sales
• Occasional travel may be required
• Experience using Figma (or Sketch), UserTesting.com (or relevant user research software), Confluence, and JIRA preferred

InStride is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, ethnicity, religious creed, color, national origin, ancestry, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, marital status, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, medical condition, or any other category protected by applicable federal and state law, including the City of Los Angeles’ Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance relating to an applicant's criminal history.

We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided a reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform crucial job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please discuss your requested accommodation with our HRBP.

Effective November 1, 2021, all new hires must be fully vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus unless they have been granted a reasonable accommodation. If you are offered employment, this requirement must be met by your date of hire, unless a reasonable accommodation is approved by the People & Talent team in writing.