Director of Design Expressions

The Amazon Device and Services Design Group (DDG) is a multidisciplinary design team that is responsible for the UX of the Echo family of devices, Fire TV, Fire Tablets, Alexa Mobile and more. DDG's mission is to bring to life delightful, easy-to-use, and high value experiences for our customers.

We are looking for a Design Director with a global perspective to deliver products at scale with universal appeal. You will be joining the Device & Services Design Group at Amazon in a role that reports to our Vice President of Design and has a high level of interface with key product partners across the Devices & Services Organization. You will drive design impact across Amazon as you shape our customers connection to our brand throughout our product portfolio and influence the development of devices and services that delight out customers.

Design Expressions are the feel of our digital experiences. They activate the senses utilizing sound, visuals, motion, touch, and haptics to provide meaningful emotional guidance that is multi-sensory and inclusive. As the Design Director of Design Expressions, you will be responsible for managing a multi-disciplinary design team to create and ship elegant, intuitive experiences that engage and delight users. You will inspire the team to think big, explore new ideas, and to invent and simplify design concepts into globally scalable expressions of our brand. You will bring high level taste-making, hire and develop the best talent in the industry, and build trusted partnerships with a variety of product and engineering teams. You will identify, define, and teach best practices within the organization and the broader design community to unify design processes, foster innovation, and improve efficiency throughout the product development lifecycle.

Key job responsibilities

• Provide the vision to transform User Experience design for the Alexa and Amazon Device Experience across the entire ecosystem of Alexa products and services.
• Advocate for our customers and the design community inside and outside of Amazon.
• Evolve the use of diverse inputs to identify and define new concepts and customer problems as opportunities for expressive, multi-sensory, design solutions.
• Influence and implement big idea design thinking with VP-level executives across Amazon.

BASIC QUALIFICATIONS

• 15+ years of experience.
• Proven history of Product Design leadership for hardware, software, mobile, home electronics, and wearables with commensurate experience in interaction design (software, mobile, web, other media), and an emphasis on conceptual, visual, interaction design and strategic thinking.
• Demonstrated experience successfully leading multi-disciplinary, multi-sensory design teams and leading full life cycle design projects, from design strategy through execution and market introduction in the consumer electronics space.
• An extraordinary portfolio of shipped (released) work that demonstrates impactful design team leadership and exemplary understanding of human-centered design principles.
• Exhibit industry leading, high aesthetic judgement that displays universal appeal across a range of product categories.
• Excellent communication, presentation, and interpersonal skills including the ability to communicate concepts clearly and persuasively across different audiences and all levels of an organization including executive management.
• Demonstrated experience synthesizing large, strategic & challenging business, technology, and customers' needs into actionable plans with demonstrated impact that leverage innovative visual and motion design expressions.
• Proven experience with rapid, iterative design and development processes that deliver results leading digital content, E-commerce & service design.
• Fluency in best practices for multi-platform information architecture and design, as well as strong knowledge of usability principles and techniques.
• Expert skill level with standard design tools such as Photoshop, Sketch, Figma, In Design and the willingness to roll up the sleeves to meet business and product deliverables.
• Able to work confidently with Program Management, Development, Product Planning, Brand, Marketing and Usability to understand the array of technical constraints, user goals, and business requirements that shape a product.
• Possess strong resource and planning skills including the ability to staff and manage design team against high-level roadmaps, projects, and priorities, in a fast pacing innovation led organization.
• Strong bias for action including the ability to juggle multiple priorities and effectively deliver in a fast-paced, dynamic environment.
• A minimum of a BA/BS degree in a Design related field such as Interface Design, Interaction Design, HCI, Communication Design, Architecture, etc or equivalent.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Experience leading design teams through several full product development cycles; successful experience as Executive Design Director, Executive Creative Director, Executive Art Director or equivalent role.
• Experience creatively solving hard problems across complex products with simple yet transformational results.
• Experience with variety of emerging interface types, eg, voice, AR/VR, gesture-based systems.
• Experience designing for ML systems.
• Demonstrated results leading integrated physical and digital experience design (ID & UX).
• Recognized globally as a high judgment expert in design or related fields. Brings value to the design industry at large.
• Passion for learning and innovation, balanced with business needs and customer expectations.
• Demonstrated mentorship and success growing and developing people and building high performing teams.
• Able to work globally, company-wide, and with industry leaders.
• Experience in user research, particularly in qualitative methodologies.
• Expertise in typographic principles, motion design, and illustration.
• Post-graduate education in design, business or related field or experience.

Amazon is committed to a diverse and inclusive workplace. Amazon is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, protected veteran status, disability, age, or other legally protected status.