Senior User Experience Designer (Non-LO-No Consumer Contact)

Business Title: UI/UX Designer III   (Non-LO-No Consumer Contact)

Career Level (completed by Comp): 14

Reports to: Financial Services Marketing Director       

Department:  Marketing

Amount of Travel: As needed

Schedule: Hybrid – 3 days in-office, 2 days remote

Pay: The expected hiring range for this position is from $100,000-$125,000/year plus additional bonus opportunity.

The stated hiring range is based on experience, qualifications, and other relevant factors. Final compensation decisions will take into account a variety of considerations, including individual skills, internal equity, and organizational needs.

Vanderbilt Mortgage and Finance, Inc. was established in 1974 and currently services over 150,000 loans. Our strength as an organization is rooted in the quality of our people and products. We are an equal opportunity employer committed to creating a diverse workforce.  Furthermore, we're financially strong, with a reputation for leading the industry with unsurpassed products, a broad range of services and a coast-to-coast presence.  We're professionally strong, from entry level to more experienced positions, we're actively recruiting individuals who are passionate, positive, and eager to learn. As a member of our team, we will equip you for success, you'll enjoy excellent benefits, opportunities for growth, and an encouraging culture that supports work/life balance.

The UI/UX Designer III focuses on delivering best-in-class user experiences for our internal and external users.  This position plays an instrumental role in the technical components of the UI/UX Designs, ensuring the smooth user experiences can easily be translated into technical code and capabilities.  This role serves as a senior technical role, able to translate complex designs and concepts into streamlined designs and capabilities.  The UI/UX Designer III is a subject matter expert and specialist in this field.

Design Creation

• Creates wireframes, design specifications, prototypes, and user flow diagrams that articulate complex user journeys across multiple webpages, touchpoints, and platforms. 
• Create and provide tools that help guide teams on their journey to usable and intuitive design. 
• Consider existing insights, technical constraints, business needs, and specific platform demands to produce user centered, data driven, and design focused solutions. 
• Ensures design brand standards and guidelines are maintained and shared with development teams to guide product design. 
•  Ensure compliance with accessibility standards (WCAG) to create inclusive designs.
• Design experiences that optimize conversion rates and user engagement based on analytics insights.
• Create design system components and UI libraries for scalability.
• Establish and maintain a scalable design system for use across products.
• Develop design documentation and component libraries to ensure consistency.

User Research & Validation

• Conduct user research, usability testing, and gather insights to inform design decisions.
• Utilize A/B testing and heat mapping tools to analyze user interactions.
• Engage with users through surveys, interviews, and usability testing to refine the experience.

Project Management

• Schedule and lead design reviews with stakeholders to gather input and secure necessary approvals at key project milestones.
• Create and maintain project timelines, ensuring that design tasks are completed on schedule to keep the overall project moving forward.
• Participate in end-to-end design reviews with project teams. 
• Advocate and lead UX discussions with project teams.

Collaboration

• Play an active role in partnering with cross-functional team members in leading cohesive design standards and best practices across the enterprise.
• Advocate and evangelize user centered design and research best practices. 
• Mentor and coach Team Members on usability and design best practices. 
• Work alongside product and development team to define user requirements. 

Other duties as assigned

This job description is not an exhaustive list of all the functions that a team member and other duties may be assigned. Part of the marketing teams roles will include understanding marketing strategy, copywriting, branding, and project management.

QUALIFICATIONS:

• Education:  Associate or bachelor’s degree preferred but not required.

• Experience: 4+ years recent experience in visual design craftsmanship, combined with a keen ability to anticipate and address user needs.

• Professional level knowledge of industry-standard design software (Figma, Adobe Creative Suites) 

• Experience with integration platforms such as Marketing Cloud, Salesforce, Appian or similar. 
• Experience with both public facing and internally facing web applications. 
• Experience in responsive frontend development (HTML, CSS, Sass, etc.) and frameworks/libraries or design systems (Material Design, etc.).
• Sufficient understanding of project management approaches, tools, and phases of the delivery lifecycle (Scrum, Kanban, Lean) and experience in JIRA, Confluence, or equivalent documentation tools.
• Experience converting complex business processes into simple, logical, easy to use systems and skilled in page design, organization, and structure of content.  
• Experience and knowledge of UX principles, methodologies, and design best practices.  This includes user centered design, user research methodologies, and accessibility standards. 
• Ability to influence others and move toward a common vision or goal. 
• Capable of researching and gathering in-depth insights into a user’s needs through a variety of techniques including user observation, group facilitation, storyboarding, etc. 
• Strong active listening and collaboration skills. 

PHYSICAL DEMANDS:

• Must be able to remain in a stationary position 75% of the time.
• Constantly operate a computer and other office productivity machinery, such as a telephone, calculator, copy machine, and computer printer.
• 30% communication methods completed over the phone.
• Must be able to exchange accurate information at all times.
• Constantly works in an indoor temperature controlled, sealed window office environment.

BENEFITS:

• Medical and Dental Plan with Prescription Coverage and Vision
• Competitive benefits including 401(K) includes 100% company match of the first 4%
• Paid time off days (PTO), maternity/paternity leave, and holidays
• Community involvement including Volunteer Paid Time Off (VTO)
• Tuition Assistance for your first degree
• Enjoy coming “home” to our brand new, state-of-the-art Home Office equipped with onsite fitness facility with full gym, workout classes, volleyball and basketball courts, ping-pong, disc golf course, and onsite restaurant
• Wellness programs that focus on emotional, social, spiritual, intellectual, environmental, physical, and financial well-being
• Collaborative and energetic work environment
• Professional development and promotion opportunities
• Competitive bonus programs

• A Berkshire Hathaway Company – an integrity-based organization offering unlimited career growth
• Full-time team members have the flexibility to create their own health, dental, and vision benefits package. Vanderbilt Mortgage and Finance, Inc. provides competitive 401(k) programs, including investment options and company matching for full and part time employees after one year to help our team members achieve their financial goals. Additional benefits include paid parental leave, tuition reimbursement, Employee Assistance Programs, and more.
• Vanderbilt Mortgage and Finance Inc. is a subsidiary of Clayton of which is proud to have earned spots on the following Forbes lists: America’s Best Employers, America’s Best Employers by State, Best Employers for Diversity, Best Employers for Women.
• As part of Vanderbilt Mortgage’s commitment to Opening Doors to a Better Life, VMF is now providing paid time for Team Members to volunteer to causes that are meaningful to them through the Clayton Impact program.
• At VMF, we encourage holistic wellness with physical, nutritional, social, financial, spiritual, and occupational programs available online or in-person for team members.
• Our newly renovated Home Office campus offers an onsite restaurant, onsite fitness facility with full gym, in-person and virtual workout classes, yoga/barre studio, volleyball, and basketball courts, walking paths, and a disc golf course.

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