Senior User Experience Designer

Here’s what we’re about. Cantina is an award-winning strategic design and development agency based in Boston with expertise in digital design, mobile app and web development, IoT, connected devices, and experience strategy. We work with companies in all major industry sectors ranging from the Fortune 500 to high growth startups. Our clients include some of the largest and most innovative companies on the planet, and we are actively exploring and doing work in a variety of exciting areas including health & wellness, financial services, sports tech, AR & VR, and machine learning. At our core, we are a team of creators, innovators, builders, designers, engineers, and strategists who love what we do. We are committed to designing and building experiences that truly matter, and that enhance the human experience. If you are excited about this opportunity, and you’ve got what it takes to make an impact in this critical role at Cantina, we want to hear from you!

About you: We’re looking for a senior-level designer to bring design leadership and expertise to our experience design practice.

Cantina’s design process is driven by research, data and collaboration. You should be fluent in the use of research as a primary input to your work. You should methodically seek and embrace insights based on sound data gathered through that research. You should be adept at presenting findings and then tying design decisions back to specific data. You should relish a process that relies upon evidence and rigor rather than impulse and intuition, but know when and where to get value from the latter.

You are first approachable, second smart, and people enjoy being on your team and working with you. You eschew individual heroism for shared team success. You’re over the “Big Design Up Front” mindset and have seen the light of iterative design. You see communication and collaboration as the keys to success. You have strong opinions, but you know how to see other’s point-of-view and incorporate it into your work.

Key Responsibilities

• Work directly with clients to distill requirements into world-class digital products and services across platforms, reconciling user needs, business goals and technical realties.
• Lead client and less senior team members through participatory and iterative design techniques such as observational studies, customer interviews & usability testing.
• Work collaboratively with lead designers, technical developers and project managers to ensure project success.
• Lead multi-day design sprints and collaborative workshops for client engagements.
• Effectively communicate research findings, workshop outputs, conceptual ideas, detailed design, and design rationale both verbally and visually.
• Assess need for and create a wide range of deliverables, from low-fidelity prototypes to development-ready visual comps and design assets.
• Represent Cantina’s design practice in pre-sales and marketing events.

Qualifications

• 5 to 8 years experience in UX design, or consummate experience.
• A degree in Human-Computer Interaction, product design, relevant field or demonstrated experience.
• Expertise in 1-2 areas of User Experience (for example, experience design strategy, interaction design, information architecture, content strategy, visual design, prototyping, and concepting).
• Understanding of Human-Centered and data-informed design, Lean UX and Agile methodologies.
• Fluency in Sketch, Adobe Creative Suite, Zeplin, inVision and Abstract along with an interest in learning new tools.
• Several years of experience within an integrated design process with project managers and a development team.
• Ability to deliver insights about people and behavior in a way that generates empathy and engagement from the client and design team.
• Strong influencing, negotiating and communication skills (written, verbal, presentation).
• Ability to comfortably give and receive feedback.
• Passion for excellence and attention to detail.

Compensation

• Competitive salary
• Eligible for a target bonus of up to 20% of base salary

Benefits and Perks

• 100% employer-paid insurance premiums for health, dental, vision and disability
• Optional company-paid mobile phone plan
• Company-paid bike share program
• Flexible work arrangements (such as work from home days) available upon request
• Paid parental leave for up to six (6) weeks
• 401(k) retirement plan with employer match
• Vacation time accrued to twenty (20) days per year
• Convenient downtown Boston location