Director of Product Design

Over the last 13 years, Ellevation Education has built a thriving business serving the administrators, teachers, and specialists who support English Learners (ELL) at public schools across the US. Today, over 1,800 school districts use our software to manage their EL programs. We are a successful, rapidly growing business with a real mission—helping ELLs achieve their highest aspirations.
We are growing our Product Design organization and looking for an experienced, hands-on Director of Product Design to lead the team and help build amazing product experiences across the suite of our of products.
At Ellevation, Product Designers are responsible for working cross-functionally on agile teams. Our Product Designers are full stack: they conduct user research, inform product discovery, and contribute to iterative delivery. 
You will oversee a team of Product Designers, collaborate closely with product managers, engineers, and other key stakeholders to ensure our products are not only functional but delightful, user-centric, and innovative. Your role will involve shaping the design vision, establishing best practices, and fostering a culture of creativity and collaboration. Doing this requires a hands-on approach to both design leadership and talent development.
You will be responsible for the overall user experience across our site or connected products. This includes contributing to our overall product strategy at Ellevation and driving growth and adoption of our nascent design system -- Backpack -- across all product lines. Through this work, you will develop a deep understanding of the unique needs of our key users, champion hypothesis-driven discovery, and be a partner in the iterative development process.
You will also be responsible for growing the overall capacity of the Product Design organization. This includes building scorecards for key roles, recruiting and onboarding great people, and offering coaching and guidance to ensure your direct reports can reach their full potential and advance in their careers. 
To learn more about our products please visit: https://ellevationeducation.com/product-guide
Product Culture
We are organized into small product teams that focus on key problems to solve in the context of their specific domain. We focus on outcomes over output. Our teams are empowered to research, prototype, and gather feedback from users -- both internal and external -- to validate hypotheses. We engage users early and rapidly iterate so that the end result is a high-confidence, high-value product. We aim to foster an environment where we have the runway to experiment and learn from failure while tackling tricky challenges.
Our teams are cross-functional in that they are made up of members of Product (Product Management, Product Design, Education Solutions) and members of Engineering. Product and Engineering work hand-in-hand together—we call ourselves DevPro, and in fact, we rarely meet in isolation.  
We value Product Designers that are able to think like Product Managers in their ability to look at solving problems from multiple angles and considering the merits and tradeoffs of different approaches. As Product Strategy evolves, you will need to effectively communicate about your understanding of problems and how your solution meets the needs of the users and the business. 
We celebrate being accountable to outcomes, which means signing up to pursue that vision by knocking down obstacles that get in the way.  This looks like conducting experiments which throw off learnings, adjusting strategy based on those learnings, and delivering products to end-users that change behavior and drive real value for the business. 

Impact

• 1 month - Build a clear picture of the strategic context and challenges facing Ellevation with a particular eye on key in-progress initiatives. Understand Ellevation’s approach to People Leadership by fully understanding the Product Design Career Matrix and participating in Manager’s Circles. Develop rapport with direct reports, peers, and key stakeholders.
• 3 months - Spend time with our users and develop a sense of how they use Ellevation products. Understand Ellevation’s approach to recruiting. Establish influential, high-trust relationships across the organization with other Directors.
• 6 months - Steward overall direction of Product Design. Ensure teams are delivering high-impact business results across all domains. Work closely with the Chief Product Officer to set performance management / talent strategy. Work with other leaders to drive a multi-year approach to Growth. Continue to grow influence across the organization. 
• 12 months - Take full ownership over Product Design at Ellevation. Expand the overall capacity of the team. Work cross-functionally to define hea