The Role

We’re looking for a lead designer to join the DBRS Morningstar team. In this role, you’ll collaborate closely with the product management team, product owners, technologists, analysts, and senior operations team members to define new service offerings and redefine existing offerings. It will be your job to consider every touchpoint as various investment professionals turn to the service to better understand complex financial concepts. We seek a leader who can bring clarity and structure to product development by constantly advocating for proven user-centered design and development processes. You will play a critical role in driving the credit ratings business forward and growing the design team as needed. The role will report to the Head of Credit Products and will be based in Chicago.

Responsibilities

You’ll need to be great at:

· Understanding at an expert level how to provide solutions for complex navigation and information hierarchy challenges at a system level while also supporting a strong user-facing experience.

· Coaching your teammates on how to make decisions around information structure, relationships, and strategy.

· Expertly utilizing design thinking methods in day-to-day work, including collaborating with the team to successfully incorporate these methods into an Agile process.

· Coaching other designers, business leads, and stakeholders in the values and methods of design thinking to solve user needs and realize business goals while also supporting our design culture.

· Identifying connections between products and communication channels and guiding teams to build and plan for coordinated solutions.

· Partnering with the product owners and engineering leads to support the end-to-end vision of the product.

· Supporting a collaborative, transparent, and high-performing team environment by leading a positive, results-oriented attitude and culture that’s built on resilience, great communication, and mutual respect.

· Promoting open discussion of new ideas, tough issues, and contrasting points of view.

· Envisioning and communicating service concepts and ideas using methods and tools that illustrate all the components and touchpoints of the service.

· Helping to define user interaction models and user experiences for new and existing products.

· Sketching and presenting UX concepts and behaviors with paper sketches, wireframes, task/workflows, simple working prototypes, or whatever form best communicates your ideas.

· Leading user-centered research with customers through interviews, usability testing, usage analysis, and participatory design.

· Communicating UX design solutions to multiple development teams through prototypes, detailed specifications, and similar types of communication documents.

· Using data and experimentation in the design process to deliver on intended outcomes.

· Thriving in an agile work environment, including the ability to embrace iterative product development while maintaining a cohesive and holistic view of the overall design experience.

· Influencing colleagues, business stakeholders, and senior leaders.

You’ll also do things like:

· Leveraging our design system to create prototypes of the service

· Demonstrating exceptional stakeholder management skills, including effectively managing expectations and obtaining agreement on key objectives.

· Continuously striving to find better ways of doing things.

· Editing and generating clear and concise labels, prompts, and other messaging copy that guides the user and meets business needs.

· Persuading and leading others to invest in quality design and demonstrate the value of doing it right.

· Collaborating with the product owner, other designers, and technologists on your squad to make sound product decisions.

· Being highly proficient in core research skills, such as interviewing, analysis, and reporting techniques, and execute common types of user research with minimal guidance and supervision.

· Providing guidance and mentorship to junior team members.

· Translating usage patterns into intuitive, rewarding interactions, and workflows.

· Being curious about new technology and pushing experiences to be current and modern.

Basic Qualifications:

· Bachelor’s degree

· 7 years or more of relevant professional experience is required

Preferred Qualifications:

· Strong knowledge of Sketch, InVision, Microsoft Office Suite, and Mac OS X Knowledge of HTML and CSS

· Degree in a field related to human-computer interaction, design, library sciences, psychology, or communication

How to apply:

Include a link to your online portfolio or attach pdf samples along with your resume.

About Us

DBRS Morningstar is a global credit ratings business, currently with 700 employees in eight offices globally. Formed through the July 2019 acquisition of DBRS by Morningstar, Inc., the ratings business is the fourth-largest provider of credit ratings in the world.

DBRS Morningstar is committed to empowering investor success, serving the market through leading-edge technology and raising the bar for the industry. DBRS Morningstar is a market leader in Canada, the U.S. and Europe in multiple asset classes.

DBRS Morningstar rates more than 2,600 issuers and 54,000 securities worldwide and is driven to bringing more clarity, diversity of opinion, and responsiveness to the ratings process. DBRS Morningstar’s approach and size provide the agility to respond to customers’ needs, while being large enough to provide the necessary expertise and resources.