About the position
Ahold Delhaize USA, a division of global food retailer Ahold Delhaize, is part of the U.S. family of brands, which includes five leading omnichannel grocery brands - Food Lion, Giant Food, The GIANT Company, Hannaford and Stop & Shop. Our associates support the brands with a wide range of services, including Finance, Legal, Sustainability, Commercial, Digital and E-commerce, Technology and more. An exemplar of core skills and eminence the Manager, UX/UI Design & Strategy will help activate the design vision, build tools that accelerate research and design, and drive the design direction for the end-to-end experience that their users will have when engaged with our business, products and services. The individual in this role will guide, direct and approve work within their end user portfolio and autonomously identify and lead multiple programs, often with significant complexity. As a master collaborator and design thinker they will lead their team to transform complexity into innovative, strategic artifacts and human-centric solutions, serve as the advocate for users' needs and experiences throughout the design process, solve problems with creativity and analytical thinking based on research, data, and industry best practices with a strong focus on service design through engagements with senior leadership and cross-functional business teams. They will demonstrate the ability to understand the business context behind intuitive, innovative, and beautiful experiences that people are drawn to use - delivering on intended business objectives and value. This role will play a critical part in implementing user-centered design practices (design thinking, strategy communication) at scale, as well as defining ways of working with product leadership and cross-functional teams with user-centric design practices (user personas, user journeys, user sentiment), and user interface development (engineering wireframes, high-fidelity visual prototypes, and consistent visual design standards). Our flexible/hybrid work schedule includes 3 in-person days at one of our core locations and 2 remote days. Our core office locations include Salisbury, NC, Quincy, MA, and Chicago, IL. Applicants must be currently authorized to work in the United States on a full-time basis.
Responsibilities
- Setting and upholding best practices that enable designers to act as the voice of their end users and articulate insights in compelling and creative ways.
- Leveraging teams and user-centric ways of working to orient cohesive underlying models with business strategy, technical feasibility and end-user needs.
- Illustrating their vision and understanding of advanced principles of design at a holistic portfolio level through prototyping, interaction design, and compelling visual design.
- Empowering their team to gain and apply expertise about the end users they support, Product fundamentals, the technology landscape at ADUSA, and the business of grocery retail to their work.
- Transforming ways of working with cross-functional peers, stakeholders and leaders on the process and approach for identifying end-user needs and solving problems.
- Stewarding Research & Design team culture, developing trust with their own and their direct reports' networks, managing the development of their direct reports, helping to diffuse conflict, and creating the team they need.
- Actively overseeing multiple workstreams, offering a vision for their portfolio and setting holistic strategies that coordinate the efforts of their team to deliver quality work with measurable impact.
- Additional job duties may be assigned as needed to meet the needs of the business and support our Values.
Requirements
- Bachelor's degree in Design or related field and Masters Degree in Design, Human-Computer Interaction, Business Administration; equivalent trainings, advanced certifications and/or experience equivalency will be considered.
- 5 or more years of professional experience in design.
- 2 or more years of experience in an advanced design role in support of digital product development or product innovation leading teams directly or indirectly.
- 2 or more years of experience directly responsible for guiding, onboarding, and developing UX design team members in relevant technologies, capabilities or skills.
- Demonstrated experience leading design programs from discovery through delivery, consistently delivering high-quality results.
- Strong background in qualitative research including moderating skills, questionnaire design, contextual inquiry, and analysis.
- Expert on design thinking, industry standards, and evolving market opportunities and high-value products.
- Well versed in facilitating brainstorming and product discovery sessions and getting consensus among a large, diverse group of complex and senior stakeholders.
- Expert use of storytelling and end-to-end thinking at sketch/concept level.
- Expert use of collaborative design and prototyping tools, such as Mural, Miro, Figma, InVision, and Sketch.
- Proficient with design software including Adobe XD, Illustrator, Photoshop and After Effects within the Adobe Creative Cloud Suite.
- Proficient with Microsoft Office suite, including Word, PowerPoint, and Excel.
- Key Skills: UX Design principles and deliverables, including human-centered approaches, generative user research methods, user personas, service blueprints, information architecture, wireframes and knowledge of product development lifecycle, collaboration and results orientation.
Nice-to-haves
- Post-graduate degree advanced training and/or certifications in relevant field(s) of study.
- 3 or more years of experience in Agile teams and/or product-based operating model.
- 3 or more years of experience in leading others or advancing enterprise design thinking within an organization.
- Product transformation experience.
- Experience in retail or grocery.
Benefits
- Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging are infused in our business.
- Total wellness, which encompasses a blend of physical, financial and emotional wellness.
- Collaboration, curiosity, and continuous learning in all that we think, create and do.
- Building a culture where personal and professional growth are just as important as business growth.
