Lead Product Designer

About SmartNews

SmartNews is a global leader in redefining information and news discovery, committed to providing users with accurate, timely information and supporting quality journalism. We combine the power of our unique machine-learning technology with the expertise of our first-rate editorial team to bring news that matters to millions of users from our over 3,000 global publishing partners.

Founded in 2012 in Tokyo, Japan, SmartNews has offices in Tokyo, San Francisco, Palo Alto, New York, and Singapore.

The Team & Role

The Design team at SmartNews is dedicated to revolutionizing how people consume news through user-centric design. Our mission is to build upon our Japan and US products to better inform, engage and empower our users.

As a Lead Product Designer, you will play a crucial role in shaping the design and user experience of our JP product, by applying in-depth UX research and driving innovative UX design.

You will be responsible for driving high-level product strategy and vision resulting in clear business impact. You will work closely with and inspire and influence cross-functional teams, including product managers, engineers, data scientists and content specialists, and work with the design team to bring the vision to life. Strong user research skills will be essential as you gather insights to inform design decisions and create user-centered solutions.

Your relentless focus on enhancing user experience will elevate our brand, reinforcing our position in the tech industry.

Your Responsibilities

Define product & design strategy

• Drive overall holistic product strategy and vision in collaboration with design and product leadership
• Help identify and define specific high-impact initiatives based on data, research and design strategy, leading to business impact

Drive & conduct user research

• Help build a system and culture for continuous user insight collection
• Design and facilitate qualitative research studies to complement quantitative data
• Understand and synthesize quant and qual data, resulting in actionable insights for design

Design direction

• Use data to inform design decisions, resulting in impactful, user-centric solutions
• Be hands-on in creating user flows & journeys, design concepts and prototypes that can be used to convey and validate ideas and to direct other designers 
• Facilitate cross-functional workshops for hypothesis creation and solution validation, and help foster a stronger culture of design-focused experiments for validation
• Mentor other designers to help push design quality and amplify outcomes

Design delivery

• Be responsible for shipping designs that meet product goals, enhance user satisfaction and create business impact

Minimum requirements

• A proven track record as a lead/senior-level product designer, driving product strategy and successfully launching user-centric products in the Japan market.
• A mastery of UX design principles, techniques and best practices.
• Deeply care about business needs and goals, and the practicality of your designs.
• Seek to understand the needs of customers through user research, analysis and synthesis, and then explore and advocate for the best user experience to solve their problems.
• Exceptional leadership and team management skills and the ability to inspire and influence.
• An excellent communicator, and can convey concepts and ideas in a compelling manner, articulating how design choices meet user and business needs.
• Experience working with cross-cultural teams.
• Excellent time-management skills, with the ability to handle multiple projects simultaneously and allocate time and effort efficiently.
• Strong problem-solving skills, creativity, and attention to detail.
• Strong proficiency in Figma.
• Business level Japanese and at least conversational English.

Nice to have experiences/skills

• Experience with news, media, or content platforms.
• Strong detail-level mobile app UI/UX/Interaction design skills
• Front-end development skills for bringing ideas to life through working prototypes.

Working Condition

• Office Location: Tokyo

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• Annual health check covered by the company
• Visa sponsorship and overseas relocation support available for eligible candidates

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