Senior Product Designer

From the Lloyd's of London coffee shop to the moon landing, every venture relies on insurance. The $1 trillion insurance industry is fundamental to our economy and society, but remains stuck in the stone age. Incumbents rely on antiquated pen-and-paper process and there's a huge opportunity to transform it through technology. At Newfront, we're building software to supercharge insurance brokers and help them deliver a delightful experience to clients.

While we're a technology-driven company, we believe that people and trusted relationships matter. Newfront believes in empowering people rather than "disrupting" them. Our singular mission is to create the future of work for this massive industry.

We believe breakout growth creates breakout opportunities and diversity drives innovation.

As one of the first design hires at Newfront you will join a team creating a completely new brokerage experience from the ground up. We're using technology and empathy to encourage the antiquated insurance industry into the modern era, and to empower those who interact with it along the way. You'll be responsible for user research, creating prototypes, and defining how problems are solved. You'll work across multiple product teams at Newfront and help define high-level design patterns.

We design products for 3 major user groups - our clients, brokers, and the servicing team.

Clients: Insurance is a complicated product that costs a lot, and the bigger your business is, the more difficult it can be to understand and purchase the right coverage. We want to make the purchasing experience transparent and understandable in order to give clients peace of mind. During the policy term, it should be quick and easy for them to request updates, make claims, pay, or otherwise get help from their servicing team.

Brokers: We help them turn leads into sales. Insurance brokers are like a sales team in a traditional SaaS company. They need a dashboard that clearly communicates the status of all of their clients, tracks their leads, shows their progress towards sales goals, and enables collaboration between them and the servicing team.

Servicing team: This team includes account managers and operations specialists responsible for providing stellar service to our clients. They are the backbone of the company since the quality and efficiency of their work directly translate into year-over-year retention of Newfront's clients.

We value collaboration with cross-functional peers and encourage them to work directly with us in exploring their issues and how a combination of product and process may help them progress towards their goals. You should feel comfortable doing user research with an audience unfamiliar with how technology is developed and communicating with leadership teams. You thrive at designing systems that support longterm product goals from day 1 and have an eagle eye for gaps that need investment. You are experienced and resourceful, unafraid to dive into an unknown project and confident enough to make mistakes, take feedback, and then iterate.

You'll be responsible for:

• User research. The Newfront platform is the operational backbone of our business. You'll be responsible for extracting insights from our users, identifying gaps and opportunities in their user experience, and designing solutions.
• Collaborating with product managers and engineers to prioritize, plan, and execute. You will work with Product Managers to conduct research and solidify project briefs, create mocks and prototypes, and work with engineering to clarify requirements and solve for technical constraints.
• Building and maintaining the Newfront design system. Ability to work within an existing design system and create new elements when needed.
• Designing for goals both large and small. Week over week, you might run a design spike with the team, creating prototypes and iterating on features. Quarter over quarter, you should be comfortable taking the lead on large initiatives that may span multiple product areas and be able to design with the future in mind.
• Mentoring: As one of the foundational members of the design team, you'll be mentoring others as the team grows and guiding cross-functional peers to grow as design partners.

You'll be a great fit if you have:

• Experience. 5+ years of experience as an individual contributor on an in-house Product Design team.
• Portfolio. Showcase of web (native optional) projects that highlights your approach to problem solving, as well as the solutions themselves. Case studies should demonstrate your skills in research, user experience, visual design, and interaction design.
• Clear systems thinking. You have worked within and evolved existing design systems and have potentially created one from the ground up. Ideally this is visible throughout your portfolio. Has a well-defined design process.
• Communication: Excellent communication and storytelling skills, in writing and in speaking, to stakeholders, peers, users, and leadership. You should be able to draw out nuanced issues and goals from operators for user research.
• Teamwork: Experience partnering with Product, Engineering, and Research to craft broader product strategy.
• Leadership: Experience in leading other members of a Product Design team.

Nice to haves:

• Design systems: Experience building design systems collaboratively from the ground up.
• Prototyping and/or coding: Understanding of front-end frameworks like Angular and React. Front-end development skills are a plus.
• Relevant domain spaces: prior experience fintech, insurance, workflow, and/or productivity products.
• Bonus if you have previously managed design teams, as we have room to grow.
• This position is open to remote candidates with a preference for those between the GMT-5 (Eastern EST) and GMT-8 (Pacific PST) timezones. #LI-Remote

Benefits:

• Competitive compensation
• Stock Options
• 100% employer-covered Medical and Dental
• Unlimited PTO
• 401k Employee Contribution Program
• Quarterly team events
• Newfront is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.

Newfront provides reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities in our job application procedures. If you need assistance or an accommodation due to a disability, you may contact us at recruiting@newfront.com.

NOTE: The information on this description has been designed to indicate the general nature and level of work performed by employees within this classification. It is not designed to contain or be interpreted as a comprehensive inventory of all duties, responsibilities and qualifications required of employees assigned to this job.