At BlackLine, we believe that great design and valuable functionality together create successful products. BlackLine continues to be a game-changer in the world of Accounting. We've taken a very manual process and automated it by creating a functionality rich application. With this, we have our BlackLine's Product design team who continues to drive the visual design and UX strategy across our entire suite of enterprise software. The ­­­­Manager of this group will lead our internal team of designers, work closely with product and tech leadership to deliver design prototypes, ensure design deadlines are reached, and take our Product Design team to the next level.

The Director of Product Design has ownership of the design direction and is responsible for overseeing a team of designers who are focused on a set of UI, UX, and IA capabilities across numerous products. This role's strong leadership, design background, and communication skills lend well to managing all projects from design through delivery by developing relationships and managing work between the designers and the whole Technology organization.

The Director of Product Design must have a strong passion for design, a great ability to lead creative discussions, give feedback, mentor, and inspire the Product Design Team.
Responsibilities

• Design Strategy and Design Quality: The Director of Product Design will play a critical role in the development of BlackLine's StyleGuide and the development of BlackLine's design direction. This role will help provide a clear vision for the design direction of our products. Additionally, this individual will be passionate about good design and modern technology. They'll ensure that the software we deliver to our customers is functional, easy to use, cutting edge, and, where possible, beautiful. 
• Team Management: The Director of Product Design will lead a team of 6+ individual and will be responsible for managing individual and team performance, creating a culture of continuous improvement, and ensuring that the team consistently aligns to BlackLine's corporate objectives. This individual will handle performance management, training, coaching, onboarding, and other day-to-day activities, and will be involved in budgeting and strategic planning. This role will need to assist other designers in leading strategic design discussions with the Engineering team and the Product Managers.
• Backlog, Resource, and Schedule: This individual is responsible for prioritizing the backlog and ensuring projects that are ready from Products are added to the Design queue. The Manager of Product Design is also responsible in making sure that each project is resourced properly. Furthermore, this role is constantly aware of the roadmap and moving design projects forward and handing over finalized, completed, and approved comps and prototypes to the Development teams.
• Process: The Direcctor of Product Design will work closely with Product Managers and other teams, including Engineering to ensure that all projects progress smoothly. Where necessary, the Manager will work to create and implement policies, procedures, and processes in order to improve our workflow and output, if necessary. This will role will initiate and implement design process changes or projects to advocate productivity and position BlackLine design's team as an innovator and trendsetter within the SaaS industry.
• Hands-on: At Blackline, leaders are still expected to roll up their sleeves and help out. The Manager is an individual who contributes, fill in gaps where necessary, and does anything that can be done to make BlackLine successful.
• Client Feedback: The Director of Product Design will construct and oversee a formal client-feedback process designed to survey clients, collect relevant data to help informed design directions, and use that as part of the design process.
• Leadership: The Director of Product Design will provide steady leadership, mentoring, and support for the Design team with the goal of ensuring that morale and productivity remain high. This role should also take special care that individual designers are adequately supported and mentored and work effectively with other teams. This role will oversee design projects from conception to completion throughout the whole design and development cycle. They will inspire others by example and should be expected to be consulted for key decisions and provide advice, answers, and a willingness to make hard choices.
• Mentoring: One of the key elements of this role is the willingness and ability to develop and mentor others throughout the technology organization. This individual actively seeks out opportunities to serve as a coach or mentor and dedicates a significant part of their time to that effort.

Competencies:

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills to be able to articulate design concepts, feedback, and design rationale
• Comfort making decisions in a fast-paced, high pressure environment
• Strong, working knowledge of interaction design, user-centered experience design, and creative process
• Deep knowledge of User Experience Design best practices and the ability to modify those approaches to suit BlackLine's unique challenges
• Proven leadership skills and management ability as evidenced by a track record of leadership positions with the ability to create, move projects forward, as well as mentor.
• Ability to work under pressure, meet deadlines, and prioritize multiple projects simultaneously
• Strong interpersonal skills with the ability to assist and resolve tension, motivate a team, lead and mentor a team of designers
• Deep familiarity with market and organizational elements of both SaaS and Enterprise-scale software businesses including software development
• Strong drive to improve product usability with outstanding attention to detail
• Experience implementing User-Centered Design / Design Thinking practices in an organization

Required

• Deep knowledge of User Experience Design best practices and the ability to modify those approaches to suit BlackLine's unique challenges.
• 8+ years of experience in interaction of visual design, user-centered experienced design, user research, interaction design, and creative process
• Strong design leadership
• Strong HTML and CSS experience
• Experience with mentoring and supporting other designers
• Knowledge of user interface design processes and methodology
• Advanced proficiency with design and prototyping tools such as Sketch and InVision
• Strong design portfolio
• up to 25% travel

Preferred

• BA/BS in Product Design or related design degree.
• Knowledge of modern web application architecture and engineering patterns and practices
• Familiarity with market and organizational elements of both SaaS and Enterprise-scale Software