Director, Experience Design

Posting Date Jan 26, 2021
Job Number 21004329
Job Category Sales & Marketing
Location Marriott International HQ, 10400 Fernwood Road, Bethesda, Maryland, United States VIEW ON MAP
Brand Corporate
Schedule Full-Time
Relocation? N
Position Type Management
Marriott International is the world’s largest hotel company, with more brands, more hotels and more opportunities for associates to grow and succeed. We believe a great career is a journey of discovery and exploration. So, we ask, where will your journey take you?

Job Summary

The Director of Experience Design is a thought leader skilled at driving the vision for how experiences should be designed for a product or products. The ideal candidate brings advanced user experience and visual design skills, obsesses about the guest, and can implement at mass scale. This associate will be a proactive problem solver with a keen focus on data-driven product design.

This associate will be a veteran designer skilled at leading work and managing careers. They manage a team and the work of others producing creative and impactful solutions through ideation, leadership and regular feedback and critique. They provide quality strategic thinking for a product, and help ensure a shared vision across the enterprise to ensure a quality and cohesive user experience.

You’re exactly who we’re looking for if you:

• Can balance user, business and technical needs

• Readily define a product’s problem areas from the guest/user perspective

• Understand the customer journey encompasses multiple touchpoints

• Solve problems holistically across channels for a seamless experience

• Thrive on creating innovative solutions to challenging user and business problems

• Value deadlines, set realistic expectations around them and then meet them

CANDIDATE PROFILE

Education and Experience

Required:

• 4-year degree from an accredited college or university, preferably in design or technology discipline

• 8+ years of experience in digital design as a creative, IA, UX, CD, or visual designer, with demonstrated ability to manage others

• 4+ years of experience with/at a Top 100 Internet property, measured by traffic, revenue, or growth

• Proven experience delivering concepts, user flows/ journeys, wireframes, prototypes, etc. across websites, mobile sites and apps

• Thrives in a fast-paced environment, with the ability to simultaneously manage multiple projects and resources internally

• Demonstrates self-confidence, energy, and enthusiasm in influencing others with a positive, roll-up-your-sleeves attitude

• Proficiency in Sketch, Adobe CS, and Prototyping (preferably InVision)

• Excellent people management skills to collaborate with colleagues, cross-functional teams and direct reports

• Possess a strong online portfolio that demonstrates compelling creative direction, systems thinking, a rational design process, and production expertise across a variety of digital formats

• Have superior communication and interpersonal skills, including strong facilitation, presentation, storytelling and critiquing skills

CORE WORK ACTIVITIES

Experience Design

You will oversee the vision and development of user experience from concept through execution – driving strategy, digital channel and product design while influencing technology and product to bring the experience to life.

• Comfortable with hands-on creation, leading an internal team, and/or partnering with an agency; and you are comfortable excelling at both the strategic and executional level

• Ability to direct designers in the execution of concepts and be ultimately responsible for the delivery of that work

• Have passionate focus on the needs of the guests and associates around the world

• Have experience crafting design systems and implementing those scalable systems across many channels and products

• Work collaboratively with other design, research, and UX leaders to develop the experience design practice, all while promoting best practices and user-centered design approaches that fit in well with the Marriott culture and needs

• Collaborate with product, program management, and technology teams in creating improved product design, development, and design systems

• Focus on continuously improving and re-evaluating the best user experience solutions across all channels and products

• Create compelling presentations to socialize your work

• Be an advocate of common interaction patterns used by competitors and the general industry, and know how/if to apply them

• Visualize all of the edge cases an interaction may spawn, but balance this through judicious use of the 80/20 rule

• Contribute to and use a variety of digital standards inclusive of style guides, component libraries, web standards, and accessibility guidelines

• Produce accurate, compelling copy that clearly and quickly conveys the key messages to the target audience

• Collaborate and direct content creation to meet design and brand needs on primary products

• Provide thought leadership and recommendations on UX and UI enhancements across all digital touchpoints

• Design how systems respond to the actions of users, with the goal of optimizing the satisfaction of those users’ specific goals

• Clearly walk through an interaction and communicate it to potential users, your team, and stakeholders

Measurement & Analytics

You value data or insight over opinion, by basing decisions on metrics, segment data, and user research findings and insights.

• Push and deliver data-based design solutions that exceed the needs of the channel, both through the work of your team and hands-on contributions

• Comfortable with multiple qualitative and quantitative research methods, like surveys, usability testing, multivariate testing, A/B testing, etc.

• Ability to take qual/quant dashboards/results and translate into an actionable design strategy

• Align your decisions with high-level organizational strategies, KPI/MBO/OKRs, and business objectives, working with other team leaders to translate these into team and personal goals

• With an evidence-based mindset, stay focused on continuously improving and re-evaluating the best business and user experience solutions across all channels and products

• Stay on top of the latest techniques being used by our direct competitors and other brand-based eCommerce properties, and identify strategic opportunities for competitive advantages through those findings

Managing Work, Projects, and Policies

• Comfortable with a culture of feedback and regular opportunities to critique and be critiqued

• Coordinates and implements work and projects as assigned

• Complies with Federal and State laws applying to procedures

• Analyzes information and evaluates results to choose the best solution and solve problems

• Have superior communication and interpersonal skills, including strong facilitation, presentation, storytelling, sketching and critiquing skills

Additional Responsibilities

• Provides information to supervisors and co-workers by telephone, e-mail, or in person in a timely manner

• Attends and participates in all relevant meetings

• Presents ideas, expectations and information in a concise, organized manner

• Uses problem solving methodology for decision making and follow up

• Manages time effectively and conducts activities in an organized manner

• Performs other reasonable duties as assigned by manager

MANAGEMENT COMPETENCIES

Leadership

• Adaptability - Maintains performance level under pressure or when experiencing changes or challenges in the workplace.

• Communication - Conveys information and ideas to others in a convincing and engaging manner through a variety of methods.

• Problem Solving and Decision Making - Identifies and understands issues, problems, and opportunities; obtains and compares information from different sources to draw conclusions, develops and evaluates alternatives and solutions, solves problems, and chooses a course of action.

• Professional Demeanor - Exhibits behavioral styles that convey confidence and command respect from others; makes a good first impression and represents the company in alignment with its values.

Managing Execution

• Building and Contributing to Teams - Participates as a member of a team to move toward the completion of common goals while fostering cohesion and collaboration among team members.

• Driving for Results - Sets high standards of performance for self; assumes responsibility for work objectives; initiates, focuses, and monitors the efforts of self toward the accomplishment of goals; proactively takes action and goes beyond what is required.

Building Relationships

• Coworker Relationships - Interacts with others in a way that builds openness, trust, and confidence in the pursuit of organizational goals and lasting relationships.

• Customer Relationships - Develops and sustains relationships based on an understanding of customer/stakeholder needs and actions consistent with the company’s service standards.

• Global Mindset - Supports employees and business partners with diverse styles, abilities, motivations, and/or cultural perspectives; utilizes differences to drive innovation, engagement and enhance business results; and ensures employees are given the opportunity to contribute to their full potential.

Generating Talent and Organizational Capability

• Talent Management - Provides support and feedback to help individuals develop and strengthen skills and abilities needed to accomplish work objectives.

Learning and Applying Professional Expertise

• Continuous Learning - Actively identifies new areas for learning; regularly creates and takes advantage of learning opportunities; uses newly gained knowledge and skill on the job and learns through their application.

• Business Acumen - Understands and utilizes business information to manage everyday operations and generate innovative solutions to approach business and administrative challenges.

• Technical Acumen - Understands and utilizes professional skills and knowledge in a specific functional area to conduct and manage everyday business operations and generate innovative solutions to approach function-specific work challenges.

• Basic Competencies - Fundamental competencies required for accomplishing basic work activities.

• Basic Computer Skills - Uses basic computer hardware and software (e.g., personal computers, word processing software, Internet browsers, etc.).

• Mathematical Reasoning - Adds, subtracts, multiplies, or divides quickly, correctly, and in a way that allows one to solve work-related issues.

• Oral Comprehension - Listens to and understands information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.

• Reading Comprehension - Understands written sentences and paragraphs in work related documents.

• Writing - Communicates effectively in writing as appropriate for the needs of the audience.

Marriott International is an equal opportunity employer. We believe in hiring a diverse workforce and sustaining an inclusive, people-first culture. We are committed to non-discrimination on any protected basis, such as disability and veteran status, or any other basis covered under applicable law.