Lead Designer

About Better.com:

We're one of the fastest growing homeownership companies in America. Why? Because we're making homeownership simpler, faster - and most importantly, more accessible for all Americans.

By combining smarter technology with a desire to not just change one piece of the journey but the entire makeup of what it's like to buy and own a home in this country, we're building things that don't exist yet.

Better.com by the numbers:

We fund $600 million in home loans per month
Nearly $5 billion in loans funded since our inception in 2016
2 years running, we're one of Crain's "Best Places to work"
We're #11 on Fortune's Best Places to Work in NYC
And #964 on Inc.'s 2019 "5000 Fastest-Growing Companies"
We've secured over $254 million from our investors to date
...and counting

We continue to outpace the industry at every turn. We've recently joined forces in partnership with Ally Bank. Plus, our backers have helped build some of the most transformative tech and finance companies in history. Kleiner Perkins, Goldman Sachs, IA Ventures, American Express, Citigroup, Activant Capital, and others have all invested in our vision of redefining the entire homebuying journey.

The Department

Design plays a massive role in achieving this. Mortgages are complicated and quite frankly, stale. As designers, our job is to take all this complexity, distill it down to its essence, and repackage it into something simple, intuitive, and enjoyable.

That's why we don't distinguish between UX, Visual, or Product Designers. Our designers are all of them - part business strategist, part user researcher, and 100% committed to creating an exceptional user experience in a space that sorely needs it.

The Role: Lead Designer

As a Lead Designer at Better, you will be a highly strategic, self-sufficient problem solver. You bring impeccable design taste, a meticulous attention-to-detail, and a passion for representing the user. You will help navigate the complexities of daily UX and service design problems, while helping push the boundary of what design means at Better. We're looking for Lead Designers who are excited by building something from scratch. As a Lead, that's what you'll do -- lead, define, and deliver work with tangible business value and real user impact. That means that you partner with Product Managers, Researchers, Engineers and other Designers to shape the overall vision and uphold the standards of the solution.

Collaboration and critique is at the core of everything we do. We believe that creating the best product experience requires intense collaboration, constant questioning, and a healthy level of challenge. The user is always our focus. So, we don't waste time presenting in Google Slides or Keynote. We prototype, test, and iterate -- early and often.

As a Lead Designer, you will help uphold and build on this approach. We're looking for someone to elevate the team, own user-first solutions to business problems, and always look for ways to simplify the experience.

What you bring:

6-8 years of experience shipping high-quality user experience solutions
Proven experience leading designers, projects, and processes including insights, ideation, validation, and implementation
An ability to blend craft and form -- a deep understanding of composition, balance, and layout with an appreciation for business and strategic needs
Expertise developing and conveying ideas, data, and business concepts clearly in written and visual format
Ability to provide a variety of approaches to problem-solving and product development
Passion for design across digital products, service design, and brand development
Meticulous attention to detail across applied to everything from strategic and creative direction to usability and pixel-level aesthetics
Experience partnering with Engineers and Product Managers to ship work on time and scale in line with tech implementations/limits
Entrepreneurial, self-starter attitude with no problem adapting or flexing on a daily basis
Extensive experience iterating on products and services in market
Ability to execute, lead, and oversee functional visual and interaction designs -- including layout, hierarchy, typography, motion, composition, UX, and UI applications
Relentless desire to push your limits, critique your own work, and elevate the work of those around you
Organization and analytical skills
Experience working across web, iOS, and Android implementations
Deep understanding of the rationale behind good versus bad user experience
Expertise in Figma, Sketch, Adobe Suite, and Google Slides
Self-sufficient prototyping skills in programs like Invision and Principle

What you'll do

Continue to help build out our design system
Lead a team of Designers and Writers through ideation, concepting, detailed design, prototyping (we don't present here) and final delivery
Uncover interdependencies, trade-offs, and risks within a given project - making them visible and collaborating to resolve challenges early
Collaborate with our Brand team to craft compelling stories through copy, video, animation, illustration, and photography
Craft elegant complex end-to-end user flows for multiple scenarios and user archetypes
Synthesize product and business goals into user-centric design solutions across multiple products and experiences
Work with Product Managers and Engineers to set project KPIs, monitor its success, and optimize based on results
Work with Designers and Product Managers to set timeline expectations and create project plans
Work with Designers to prototype and envision future product features, including phased feature rollouts and short-term vs. long-term solutions based on engineering constraints
Help define and iterate how our brand should be expressed across our product
Work across teams to ensure we are utilizing both qualitative and quantitative insights into our design process and are clear about how they influence design decisions
Partner with Product Managers, Engineers and Researchers right hand and you'll work closely to solve complex problems, find compromises and plan effectively
Mentor fellow designers, encouraging them to take appropriate risks, and providing constructive support, feedback, and critique

Things we value:

Curiosity. Why? How? Repeat.
Nerdiness. Financial news and trends are fascinating. Seriously.
Relentlessness. No one here gives up. We try. We fail. We try again.
Passion. If you don't get excited about homeownership, mortgages, and real estate, it simply won't work.
Smarts: book and street. We have to use all the tools at our disposal to build Better.
Empathy and Compassion. You understand that people's biggest dreams are in your hands.
Communication. Can you ask for help or put your hand up when you don't understand?
Building. Doing. Making. Yes, we have to do a lot of thinking and talking to figure this stuff out, but you can't wait to leave the conversation and build it.