Design - VP of Design

Job Description

Hi there!Were looking for a VP of Design to lead the strategic direction and vision of the entire design organization at Zapier. Are you excited to scale a user-centered UX design culture in a 100% remote company Then keep reading!We know applying for and taking on a new job at any company requires a leap of faith. We want you to feel comfortable and excited to apply at Zapier. To help share a bit more about life at Zapier, here are a few resources in addition to the job description that can give you an inside look at what life is like at Zapier. We hope youll take the leap of faith and apply.

• Our Commitment to Applicants
• Culture and Values at Zapier
• Zapier Guide to Remote Work
• Zapier Code of Conduct
• Diversity and Inclusivity at Zapier

Zapier is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace dedicated to pursuing and hiring a diverse workforce.About youYouve managed or scaled a 30+ person design organization(s) . Specifically, youre able to effectively manage UX Research, Product Design and Brand work through at least one layer of senior management. You have the experience driving processes and systems for the organization, including career frameworks, design identity, and principles. Youre experienced with creative organizational design and have demonstrated experience growing and developing your teams.You are a strategic and inspiring leader. You have influenced at the executive level and have helped to inform the product and business strategy of the company, but you can also lead the direction and vision of the entire design team.Youve scaled a product across the chasm and have seen both sides of it. You can share anecdotes and stories about designing for both types of users (early adopters and early majority) and have successfully navigated a team or organization through the transition.You are comfortable owning the user experience. Youve owned the user experience of significant products, helping design teams prioritize and push for smart decisions that positively impact the user experience across the product.You are an expert at building relationships across the organization. We practice the EPD model here at Zapier, meaning that Engineering, Product, and Design are all equally hitched in decision-making, and each function is involved and aligned from a product s inception to its launch. Youre comfortable working in an environment where youll lean heavily on your Engineering and Product leaders, while also working across the organization with Marketing, Customer Support & Success, etc. to drive the right solutions for our customers.You are a skilled mentor and coach. You realize the best way to grow a team is by helping them to grow themselves. Youre able to effectively share your experience and provide a clear framework for growth.You are a skilled UX and UI designer. We dont expect you to create designs on a regular basis, but youve done it for years and have lots of stories and advice to share based on prior experience. You can inspire a team, even when delivering design critique, based on your past experience.You have experience leading hyper-growth UX Research teams. Youll manage our research team who do both foundational and UX validation-style research. You know how to get the most out of a research team -- how research can influence roadmaps, strategy, and decision making -- based on your past experience. You can bridge qualitative and quantitative research to help drive decision making within the broader organization.You are product, business, and customer focused. You are able to relate to our customers and partners to provide and translate business vision into user experience vision in a simple and clear manner.Youre a skilled written communicator. Zapier is a 100% remote team and writing is our primary means of communication. Youll use written summaries and reports to communicate vision, strategy, plans, findings, and results to the engineering and full Zapier team.Youre a champion for doing things efficiently. At Zapier, the work you do will have a disproportionate impact on the business. We believe in systems and processes that let us scale our impact to be larger than ourselves.Things You Might Do

• Lead and inspire your team. Today, the team is 15 in Product Design, 8 in UX Research, and 1 in Brand Design. The team will grow significantly over the next 12-18 months.
• Build rapport with each member of the design team and work hard to help them level up their skills.
• Understand the skills and weaknesses of the team and build a hiring roadmap that will support the business and product initatives
• Collaborate across functions (product, engineering, marketing, just to name a few) to help set roadmaps that will achieve business goals through design
• Advocate for a design-centric mental model across the organization. Find ways to involve non-designers in the product design process through design sprints and other creative means.
• Drive our Zapier design standards and basic design system forward
• Give, seek, and receive thoughtful critical feedback
• Give back to the community via open source, blog posts, and sharing design team work
• Travel 5-10% of the year to o ur bi-annual company retreats based in North America
• As a part of Zapiers all-hands philosophy , help customers via support to ensure they have the best experience possible

About ZapierFor the past nine years, Zapier has been helping people across the world automate the boring and tedious parts of their job. We do that by helping everyone connect the web applications they already use and love.We believe that there are jobs a computer is best at doing and that there are jobs a human is best at doing. We want to empower businesses to create processes and systems that let computers do what they are best at doing and let humans do what they are best at doing.We believe that with the right tools, you can have big impact with less hassle.We believe in small teams. Small teams are fast and nimble. Small teams mean less bureaucracy and less management and more getting things done.We believe in a safe, welcoming, and inclusive environment. All teammates at Zapier agree to a code of conduct .The Whole PackageLocation: RemoteOur team of 350+ is distributed because it lets us work with the best people. Some team members live in the United Kingdom, Thailand, India, Nigeria, Taiwan, Guatemala, New Zealand, Australia, and more! You just need the skills and drive to succeed in this role and the ability to work from anywhere.Compensation:

• Competitive salary (we dont use remote as an excuse to pay less)
• Great healthcare + dental + vision coverage*
• Retirement plan with 4% company match*
• Profit sharing
• 2 annual company retreats to awesome places
• 14 weeks paid leave for new parents of biological or adopted children
• Pick your own equipment. Well set you up with whatever Apple laptop + monitor combo you want plus any software you need.
• Unlimited vacation policy. Plus we require you to take at least 2 weeks off each year. We see most employees take 4-5 weeks off per year. This isnt a vague policy where unlimited vacation means no vacation.
• Work with awesome companies around the world. We partner with great software companies all over the world and youll constantly get to interact with people from these great companies

*While we take care of our international folks as best we can, currently, healthcare and retirement plans are only available to UK, Canada, and US-based employees.Optional: Share anonymously some demographic information about yourself to help us better track trends related to the backgrounds of candidates interested in working at Zapier in order for us to build a team that represents the users at Zapier and the broader world population.Zapier is an equal opportunity employer. Were excited to work with talented and empathetic people no matter their race, color, gender, sexual orientation, religion, national origin, physical or mental disability, or age. Ourcode of conduct provides a beacon for the kind of company we strive to be, and we celebrate our differences because those differences are what allow us to make a product that serves a global user base.,

Keyskills :
behavioral trainingorganizational designquantitative researchweb applicationsproduct designbusiness strategycustomer support