Senior Designer (12 month contract)

Job Description:

Here at Rakuten Kobo Inc. we offer a casual working start-up environment and a group of friendly and talented individuals. Our employees rank us highly in terms of commitment to work/life balance. We realize that for our people to be innovative, creative and passionate they need to feel valued and supported. We believe in rewarding all our employees with competitive salaries, performance based annual bonuses, stock options and training opportunities. 

If you’re looking for a company that inspires passion, personal, and professional growth – join Kobo and come help us on our mission of making reading lives better.

The Role:

Rakuten Kobo Inc. is looking for a Senior Product Designer to join our Product Design Team! Kobo Product Teams are responsible for connecting our cross-functional teams to our reader’s needs all over the world. Reporting to the Director of User Experience, the Senior Product Designer plays a vital role in delivering amazing product design capabilities and features to our users, bringing us closer to our company goal of enabling people anywhere in the world to read more. Our products are designed by readers, dedicated to readers. We are focused on crafting the best experience possible for all people, all languages, and all devices.
 

The Person will ideally have:

• Strong ability to demonstrate design thinking, process and solutions.
• Strong design aesthetic in addition to demonstrated experience in delivering effective design solutions informed by qualitative research and user testing.
• Solid understanding of accessibility principles and prior experience in delivering WCAG compliant digital experiences.
• Excellent communication, presentation, and interpersonal skills.
• Strong ownership and collaborative mindset to ship products.
• Great leadership in collaboration, design strategy, planning and creativity.
• Proficient in UX/UI design tools in creating wireframes and prototyping.
   

 DESIGN LEADERSHIP

• Facilitate stakeholder workshops to drive opportunity understanding and gap analysis.
• Conduct user opportunity mapping and how it provides business value.
• Participate in product design discovery and definition initiatives.

 COLLABORATION

• Working alongside various practices such as architects, developers, researchers, analysts, product owners and product management.
• Opportunity to work on multiple platforms such as the eReader, Apps, and Responsive Web.
• Working and aligning across three different geos and time zones and being able to deal with Cultural Diversity and Differences in Cross-cultural Project Teams.
• Establishing a culture of respect and transparency.

 
DESIGN STRATEGY

• Lead design vision of product roadmap.
• Lead how to integrate customer centric research findings into product design decisions.
• Lead how to ensure the product teams’ understanding of the WHY and building of the WHAT.

 
DESIGN PLANNING

• Translating business requirements, end user needs and input from cross-functional Business units into differentiated design solutions.
• Create design stories and design acceptance criteria.
• Ability to measure product design release outcomes.

 
DESIGN CREATIVITY

• Contribute to our design centric culture by focusing on user intent, user needs, and shareholder value.
• Actively participate in building and implementing a best-in-class design system and component library.
   

The Skillset:

Required:

• Minimum 5 years of experience as a product designer, UX designer, information architect or interaction designer.
• High proficiency with Figma for design delivery and FigJam for collaboration (or experience in alternative design tools that can translate into using Figma effectively and efficiently).
• A portfolio demonstrating artifacts such as taxonomies, flowcharts, wireframes, interaction design specs, visual design, journey maps, personas, and prototypes.
• Ability to articulate and rationalize your concepts or process through white-boarding.
• Ability to facilitate stakeholder workshops and enable collaboration.
• Strong experience in user testing methodologies to help conduct studies, write scripts, distil insights and present findings in an agile environment.
• Extensive experience designing for multiple form factors and platforms such as iOS, Android, and responsive web.

 
Nice to Haves:

• Experience with Storybook, Adobe Creative Suite, Sketch, Zeplin or InVision.
• Previous experience working in eReading, ecommerce, entertainment, and software environments.
• Experience working with teams in an Agile environment, using an iteration backlog, and comfortability being part of a product development team.
• Awareness of the capabilities of React.js, HTML, and CSS.

The Perks: 

• Flexible hours and hybrid remote working environment 
• Subsidized in-office lunches
• Frequent Lunch and Learns Author series 
• Weekly Kobo Tech University sessions 
• Weekly trivia happy hours (Thirsty Thursday’s, as we like to call it) 

About Rakuten Kobo Inc. 

Owned by Tokyo-based Rakuten and headquartered in Toronto, Rakuten Kobo Inc. is one of the most advanced global ecommerce companies, with the world’s most innovative e-reading services offering more than 6 million eBooks and audiobooks to 30 million + customers in 190 countries. Kobo delivers the best digital reading experience through creative innovation, award-winning e-readers, and top-ranking mobile apps. Kobo is a part of the Rakuten group of companies. 

Rakuten Kobo Inc. is an equal opportunity employer. Accessibility accommodations for candidates with disabilities participating in the selection process are available on request. Any information received related to accommodation needs of applicants will be addressed confidentially. 

Rakuten Kobo would like to thank all applicants for their interest in this role however only qualified candidates will be shortlisted.