Experience Design Lead

We are looking for a bright and passionate Experience Design Lead to be a founding member of AvalonBay’s new Digital Squad. Do you have a passion for creating compelling and meaningful digital experiences? Are you a champion for the best customer experience? Are you a creative problem-solver and communicator? Do you want to help lead the transformation of a company and an industry? If you’re a resounding yes, we want to talk to you.

ABOUT AVALONBAY DIGITAL SQUAD
At AvalonBay, we’ve embarked on a digital initiative to enhance the way we serve our customers. We’re transforming the way customers experience AvalonBay with an approach rooted in design thinking and enabled by agile methodology. The cross-functional team, based out of our corporate headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, will be empowered to act and iterate to get value to customers as frequently as possible. We will leverage exciting technologies, such as AI and a modern cloud-based technology, transforming an enterprise environment from within. Ultimately, we’re championing our organization’s core values -a Commitment to Integrity, a Spirit of Caring and a Focus on Continuous Improvement. And we’re looking for leaders to join our team.

OVERVIEW

As an Experience Design Lead, you are an integral part of a passionate team that is creating a brand-new innovative conversational experience. You will be responsible for ensuring all offerings (digital, analog, etc.) are truly customer-centric and play a core part in helping evolve the organization to be customer driven. You will develop and execute the design strategy of this experience from scratch, going from researching users’ needs and pain points to launching a real product. You will collaborate with business partners, engineers, product owners, and other stakeholders to help turn business requirements, user research, and technical capabilities into engaging conversational experiences.

WHAT YOU’LL DO

• Define the experience strategy by facilitating working sessions with internal teams with input from user research to define key design goals and requirements
• Keep an eye on industry trends and the competitive landscape for inspiration and new ideas on conversation design principles and best practices
• Champion the user experience and lead the team’s design work to ensure the delivery of a best-in-class product
• Create user journeys and prototypes to communicate and test the experience with end users
• Conduct user research, using methods such as usability testing or 1:1 interviews that are adapted to work for a non-visual conversational interface
• Maintain strong vendor relationships with vendors providing important technical components to enable the experience

• Experience Designer in a Director role, leading and coaching multifunctional teams of design strategists, researchers, and UX, UI, and visual designers
• You have 7+ years of experience designing delightful consumer quality products on both web and mobile platforms
• You are passionate about how design can create clear artifacts to express ideas (e.g., task flows, wireframes, prototypes, etc.)
• You are familiar with design systems and know what a ‘good’ visual design looks like
• You have experience with planning and conducting user research and user testing to uncover insights and validate ideas
• You’re well-versed in common design software (e.g. Invision, Adobe suite, Sketch, etc.)
• You’re comfortable working in an Agile environment and spanning a broad range of tasks – including hands on execution as well as driving overall customer experience
• You have strong communication skills and can be an articulate champion for design
• You have an entrepreneurial mindset and are willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done
• You have experience leading junior designers in delivering work and are a natural people leader
• Human Centered Design or related degree or 7+ years e in experience design

We know that our teams are the heart of our success and we’re committed to showing our appreciation.
We offer:

• Comprehensive benefits – health, dental & vision, 401(k) with company match, paid vacation and holidays, tuition reimbursement, an employee stock purchase plan and more!
• Growth based on achievement and promotion from within.
• Associate recognition (a company-wide recognition program that celebrates associate efforts and successes in contributing to the overall success of the organization – including destination awards, ‘AvalonBay’s Very Best’ recognition program and others!).
• A 20% discount on our incredible apartment homes.
• A culture built on purpose and our core values -a Commitment to Integrity, a Spirit of Caring, and a Focus on Continuous Improvement.

AvalonBay is proud to be named one of Glassdoor's Best Places to Work in 2019 and is rated as a top workplace in DC by Indeed for 2018.

AvalonBay Communities, Inc. is one of the nation’s leading Real Estate Investment Trusts (REIT’s), in the business of developing, redeveloping, acquiring and managing quality apartment communities in high barrier-to-entry markets of the United States. These markets are located in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Pacific Northwest and Northern and Southern California regions of the country. We currently own and operate approximately 80,000 apartment homes in the US and employ approximately 3,000 associates.

AvalonBay will consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with requirements under the law.

AvalonBay is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

#GD17