Who We Are

Experience Design & Research is a multidisciplinary design and research team dedicated to delivering innovative, differentiated, and exceptional fintech experiences for Northern Trust's clients, prospects, and partners by demonstrating a deep understanding of their needs. Experience Design & Research is committed to growing and supporting a diverse team, with a collaborative environment that provides educational and career growth opportunities.

As a Northern Trust partner, you will be part of a flexible and collaborative work culture, which has a strong history of financial strength and stability. Movement within the organization is encouraged, senior leaders are accessible, and you can take pride in working for a company that is committed to strengthening the communities we serve.

We recognize the value of inclusion and diversity in culture, in thought, and in experience, which is why we are honored to receive the following awards in 2021:

• Gender Equality Index Member, Bloomberg
• Top Financial & Banking Company, Black EOE Journal, Hispanic Network
• Magazine, Professional WOMAN'S Magazine

The Role

In the Experience Design Lead role, you will be the lead on fintech projects sponsored by our senior management team, focusing on the creation of new products, new experiences, and business offerings within our Hedge Fund Services domain. Additionally, you will act as a product design thought leader and coach, mentoring designers within Experience Design + Research teams and oversee a smooth transition from discovery projects to delivery and execution.

Experience Design Leads are experts in their design domain who tirelessly work toward improved user experiences (UX) by creating compelling user interfaces (UI) across a team of technology, product, and business collaborators. Your work will elevate our digital experiences through compelling and clean design that reflects the needs of our partners and clients.

What You Will Do

The Experience Design Lead is a curious, collaborative individual who leads with empathy, takes ownership of the design process and:

• Contributes to an open culture that enables employees' development through direct but kind feedback, promotes diverse perspectives and fosters a sense of curiosity and optimism
• Contribute to strategic UX leadership within the larger enterprise and across product teams
• Brings a human-centered design lens to coach and mentor designers embedded in agile teams
• Helps scope design activities and deliverables for future-focused projects sponsored by our senior management team
• Provides creative direction and conduct design reviews, and balances design decisions between research, technology and business unit objectives
• Uses a variety of tools and skills to bring concepts to life, from low-fidelity hand sketches to hi-fidelity pixel perfect mockups in Figma
• Brings leading-edge thinking and processes to the Experience Design + Research work to push our practice in new directions
• Looks for outside inspiration and has a desire to build bridges between the design team and the Chicago design community as well as other corporate innovation initiatives to encourage continuous experimentation in our research and approaches to design

Your Knowledge and Skills

As an Experience Design Lead, you should have working knowledge, or experience with at least some, but not all, of the following:

• Design thinking and UI/UX best practices, as demonstrated in a design portfolio
• Experience managing design teams and working closely with business stakeholders and/or product owners
• Ability to recognize, predict and incorporate use cases and user interactions in design
• Understanding of information design/architecture, gestalt principles and user psychology
• Proficiency in creating production-ready UI designs.
• Experience working with a cross-functional team or large-scale software development lifecycle, preferably in an agile environment
• Experience with participating and incorporating design research into projects

You do not need to have extensive financial industry knowledge for this role.

At the 'Experience Design Lead' level, we're looking for individuals that have:

• 7+ years of experience within a product design agency, in-house design team, or in a relevant business role
• Educated in design or related field, formally or though comparable training
• Bachelor's degree in design (Master's is preferred)
• Experience working with a cross-functional team on human centered initiatives and familiarity with design thinking methodology
• Experience advocating digital experiences (UX/UI) that navigate multiple perspectives from technology, product, and design to redefine existing experiences or imagine new ones.
• Clear growth mindset, looking for opportunities to learn and motivated to approach challenges proactively