The Digital Media Design Group researches, prototypes, and designs user experiences for the public across the places they are and will be—websites, smartphones, tablets, connected cars, connected homes, wearables, smart speakers and places we haven't yet imagined.
As a Design Technologist, you will collaborate with researchers, engineers and product owners to build public-facing experiences and content management solutions. Part designer, part engineer, you will embed in project teams to help find new ways to quickly and iteratively test ideas; accelerating the design process while solving real problems. From ideation through production, your work will influence and inform every aspect of our process. In this role, you would work almost exclusively on podcasts, taking a broad look at the lifecycle—from creation to consumption.
The Design Technologist is in the Design Operations unit (DesignOps), a unit in the Digital Media Design Group. We help designers work efficiently and effectively, creating an environment where good design is easy to do. DesignOps is responsible for the tooling, systems and processes that enable Digital Media Design to do our best work.
- Create elegant and useful design systems that define the NPR digital experience across platforms.
- Distill complex interactions into clear, understandable design solutions and communicate them to stakeholders
- Collaborate with researchers, engineers and product owners across projects to create and test prototypes that make ideas tangible.
- Work with your project team to determine the right tool for the job. You might build a paper prototype to quickly validate an assumption one day, and build a high-fidelity prototype using our React-based design system the next.
- Partner with engineers to work on micro-interactions and polish-level details, making flat comps come to life.
- Research and propose new ways of building prototypes, documenting your methods and processes along the way.
- Ensure that the work we do meets our standard of quality and works with established design systems and patterns.
- Fluency in modern CSS and HTML standards, familiarity with React, Swift, and CoffeeScript and a curiosity to learn new languages and frameworks.
- 1-2 years experience prototyping across multiple devices and contexts (desktop, mobile, accessories).
- Experience using Git or other version control tools.
Desired Qualifications
- Passion for podcasts and inventive about methods for their creation, discovery and distribution.
- Familiarity with a wide range of commercial and open source design and prototyping tools.
- Interest in building plugins that leverage the APIs of platforms like Sketch, Figma and InVision to supercharge our design workflows.
- Proven track record of designing and helping to ship successful products and services.
- Experience with a scripting language, like Python or Ruby.
- Ability to tell compelling stories about your work and present it confidently to stakeholders.
NPR offers a competitive compensation and comprehensive benefits package including health and wellness benefits, retirement, and work/life balance programs, as well as opportunities for career growth and development.