Design Director

Job Description Job Description: ROLE: DESIGN DIRECTOR (UX) CRAFT LEAD LOCATION: BANGALORE/PUNE About Merkle At Merkle, we empower the world's leading brands to create distinctly better experiences. We are a team of dreamers, doers, and deliverers. We create exciting and meaningful customer-centric digital experiences for our clients. Merkle is a leading Digital Transformation partner, specialising in the delivery of unique, personalised customer experiences across platforms and devices. To us CX means choreographing customer interactions, from clicks and swipes into moments of value. It means fusing art and science to design, build, and continuously shape these moments into memorable experiences and personal, meaningful relationships. We are champions for meaningful progress, and we strive to be a force for goodfor our people, for our clients, for the industry and for our society. We keep our people at the centre, creating space for growth, understanding, and learning so they can thrive. We embed diversity, in our mindset, in our solutions and in our teams to empower an inclusive, equitable and culturally fluent environment. Building this culture within our teams makes us better collaborators with each other and with our clients, driving better outcomes for all. Position Overview Design Directors at Merkle are craft leaders. They are focused on building experience visions, growing talent, and supporting teams capable of serving the needs of Merkle and our clients and their customers. As a Design Director, you will be part of the overall design leadership team and help define, design, and implement our overall design team strategy. You will build upon insights, working with cross-functional teams and clients to create experiences that establish and strengthen relationships and deliver incredible experiences. The Design Director brings out the best in the individuals and teams they lead. They understand the motivations and needs of their team members as well as business opportunities and align them for the greatest positive impact. You will spend most of your time leading large-scale design projects, while also focusing on mentoring the growth of your direct reports and growth of your client work. They support the Experience Design Lead of the India Studios, in applicable management areas, are accountable for overall performance of their key accounts, including active involvement in performance management and improving the craft satisfaction and engagement scores all helping to influence the Merkle direction, produce world class work and deliver highly effective, best practice experiences, platforms, and products. As the leader of our India UX craft, you will create and enforce a structured approach to defining the customer experience & vision, generating insights to inform design decisions and ensuring they are clearly validated. You play a critical role inspiring and mentoring team members of the team and advocate internally and externally for the UX Design craft. About The Work The team are highly skilled and cross-functional practitioners of their crafts who are passionate about pushing boundaries, evolving best practices and delivering exceptional experiences. We are looking for someone who loves working with designers, analysts, strategists, developers and directly with clients to help them to bring amazing ideas to life. You'll also be constantly learning about new techniques and approaches that we can bring to our clients. About You KEY RESPONSIBILITIES - Lead experience strategy (and partner with design) to develop customer and partner insights, heuristic and competitive experience analysis, and performance optimization strategies. - Build relationships with leaders and partners to shape our overall strategy/plans. - Build an inspired User Experience team. Set clear objectives while balancing short-term development with long-term career growth. - Be an active member of our global creative leadership team, helping create the wider team's vision, culture and goals. - Promote best practices to partners to support the strategic priorities of Search. - Winning business, creating excellent digital experiences Desired Skills & Experience - Demonstrated ability to lead the process of developing big ideas and designing complex interactions - Significant experience conducting research and translating findings into design rationale - Ability to interpret and challenge briefs and to produce work on budget and schedule - Experience in leading collaborative design workshops with clients - Expert level knowledge designing in modern design tools e.g., Figma, ProtoPie, Adobe XD - Demonstrated storytelling and presentation skills - Confident designing in a range of iterative approaches e.g., Agile, Lean, Design Sprints etc. approaches - Stakeholder management, facilitation, and interpersonal skills - Strong collaborator across creative, technology and strategy teams - Strong work ethic, proactive nature and ability to take ownership of work with a passion for design - Relevant industry training, qualifications or experience - 10+ years of experience in an UX role creating strategy and designing products. - Experience working with designers, product managers, and engineers. - Experience integrating research programs throughout the life cycle, including experience with digital, global products. - Experience using Agile/Scrum/Kanban methodologies - T-shaped growth - Scope of project experience is essential (as opposed to deep expertise in a functional area) - Experience with Adobe Creative Suite, including XD, Sketch, Figma, and PowerPoint - A portfolio with examples that exemplifies excellent UX theory and research, compelling ideas, and solid usability designs - Having fun and contributing to a strong design team culture - Participate as a team, and give back to those in need in our annual One Day for Change, volunteering day - INTERESTED We love meeting passionate designers If this role sounds exciting, we'd love you to consider even if you don't feel you meet 100% of the description or qualifications. Just send us your CV, portfolio and anything else that you think we would find interesting and if we think we would like working together then we will give you a call. At Dentsu, a diverse and inclusive culture enables our employees to bring their whole selves to work, and be proud of doing so. For us, this is the foundation for great innovation which, in turn, generates better outcomes for our people, partners and communities. This is why we encourage applications from people with disabilities, and of all ages, nationalities, backgrounds and cultures Location: DGS India - Bengaluru - Manyata N1 Block Brand: Merkle Time Type: Full time Contract Type: Permanent#DGS