User Experience (UX) Architect

LookThink is seeking a User Experience Architect to join our team. LookThink is a User Experience Design and Technology Consultancy based in Washington, DC. We design, build and deliver intuitive, powerful, and transformative digital tools that drive operations, communication and growth to make a real impact for our clients. We work across a range of industries, including education, healthcare, financial services, association, government and technology. Culturally, we are a roll-your-sleeves-up-and-get-involved kind of group that shares a love of tackling tough challenges on behalf of a wide array of interesting companies and organizations.

User experience architects at LookThink are part business analyst, part R&D, and part designers, who are responsible for shaping the products we build to fit the users' needs and satisfy stakeholder requirements.

The fundamental purpose of this role is to translate business goals and stakeholder requirements into experiences that create value for the user. To be successful you will need to be constantly learning, testing, and validating your solutions with stakeholders and users. Your main tasks will include conducting in-depth discovery/investigative sessions, translating requirements analysis into prototypes/wireframes, assisting project strategists with defining strategic vision/direction, and collaborating with designers and developers to create solutions that stay inside scope and budget.

To succeed in this role you should have a natural, analytical way of thinking, be able to capture and articulate complex information in a visual format and be able to verbally and visually explain difficult concepts to non-technical audiences. Types of projects range from enterprise business applications, to mobile solutions, to marketing websites across a wide variety of industries. You should enjoy talking to people and learning about not only their day-to-day lives, but also how their businesses work. You should enjoy digging into difficult problems and following through with creative solutions. This role is equal parts detective, psychologist, anthropologist, creative thinker, architect, technophile, business person, group facilitator and ship captain.

Remote US resources are ok for this position during pandemic. Eastern time zone preferred. Once the pandemic is behind us, we would prefer to have you in-person with us at DC headquarters - but are willing to be flexible.

RESPONSIBILITIES

* Project Requirement Ownership
* Uncover requirements through project discovery, and adjust, clarify, and/or altogether change project requirements throughout the lifecycle of the project
* Work with clients and LookThink team to prioritize requirements throughout the project
* Communicate requirements, risks, and impact to an entire project team
* Identify scope creep and adjust accordingly
* Find solutions to stay within scope and budget when requirements evolve

* Subject Matter Fluency
* Attain an understanding of client business to the degree necessary to facilitate effective strategic communication, collaboration and trust
* Work to understand the users of the platform through stakeholder interviews, user interviews, user shadowing, a/b testing, etc.
* Be comfortable leading and/or helping to facilitate both qualitative and quantitative user research and summarize your findings to create actionable plans based upon the data
* Stay up-to-date on the latest process and IT advancements
* Stay up-to-date on UX best practices and trends to the extent that you can articulate those ideas to clients when called upon

* Communication
* Effectively and proactively communicate your findings, insights and strategies to clients, cross-functional team members and management
* Create and/or document user stories, assumptions, acceptance criteria, and project risks
* Effectively listen to complex concepts and quickly comprehend and restate concepts in a way that everyone can understand in order to demonstrate your comprehension
* Actively engage and include appropriate team members in client conversations where and when their skills are necessary to ensure project success
* Lead internal and external meetings and presentations to share ideas and findings
* Can think on their feet conversationally and is comfortable allowing for awkward silences in order to let people think about what they want to say

BASIC QUALIFICATIONS

* 3-5 or more years of experience and proven track record
* Strong examples of digital web/product architecture work to be presented and reviewed during interview
* Hands-on experience creating, wireframes, prototypes, storyboards, user flows, user research plans, etc.
* Client facing experience acting as a UX project lead, either independently or as part of a team
* Experience with organizing and implementing taxonomies and working with data heavy content
* Experience having worked with a development team to bring a project to fruition
* Experience estimating and writing project briefs for client delivery

NICE TO HAVE QUALIFICATIONS

* Experience working with, or acting in Business Analyst or similar role
* Experience working within a technological development process or methodology (e.g. Agile, Kanban, etc.)
* Familiarity with other design and digital tools such as: Sketch, Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign
* Understanding of basic front-end languages: HTML5, CSS3, Javascript.
* Comfort using/administering common CMS platforms (e.g. Drupal, WordPress, etc.).
* Experience with the Salesforce CRM platform
* Experience leading or owning the UX components of a multi-phased technology project that was delivered by a cross-disciplinary team
* Experience implementing accessible solutions (WCAG, 508 compliance etc.)

MAJOR RESULTS EXPECTED

* Develop and maintain good business relationships with all clients on the project while fostering an atmosphere of cooperation and goodwill, which will lead to future opportunities
* Motivate team members and promote teamwork
* Optimize positive outcomes on behalf of clients while following ethical practices
* Maintain a complete knowledge of what is being delivered on your projects
* Deliver finished products that are properly scoped according to budget and timeline
* The Experience Architect is expected to be the one person who, from start to finish, has comprehensive vision and control over the substantive, professional-grade experience that the final product delivers to its users - at both a broad and detailed level

HOW TO APPLY

If you're interested, please send your resume, salary requirements, and a short note on why you think you'd be great for this position to Nate at nate@lookthink.com.

ABOUT LOOKTHINK

We're a tightly-knit team of energetic problem-solvers that prides itself on bringing a fresh perspective to our clients' business challenges each and every day. Our clients range from startups to large Fortune 100 corporations across the commercial, nonprofit, and public sectors. Our niche is the rethinking and enhancement of mission-critical business platforms and software that our clients depend on every day from the perspective of the end-user. We take pride in the fact that our work improves business and impacts lives by making technology and information more accessible, intuitive and empowering. You can review our Company Credo and Equality Statement in more detail by following those links. Come check us out.

PERKS

* Great healthcare, dental, and vision coverage
* OneMedical membership
* FSA
* Commuter benefits (if local to DMV)
* 401(k) with 3% safe harbor contribution
* Unlimited PTO
* Work with awesome people

LookThink is proud to be an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer. We recruit qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, gender, age, ethnic or national origin, protected veteran status, physical or mental disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status or citizenship status.