Freelance Product Designer

n2y is a national leader in creating and delivering educational materials and curriculum for the special education classroom. The company creates symbols, content and curriculum delivered using dynamic and interactive applications to students, teachers and parents. Its curriculum is used extensively throughout the United States, and the company has the number one licensable symbol set used to develop special education content.
We’re seeking an established and self-driven Product Designer with 3+ years of design systems experience to be a key IC for our product design team and pods. The ideal candidate has mastery and a keen interest in complex product feature development functions and growing design systems to improve internal delivery.

This is an impactful role to transform and scale key growth-stage products for teachers. N2Y’s product suite is industry-leading and makes a huge impact on the daily lives of our customers. However, there continues to be a huge opportunity to transform the classroom experience to liberate the teachers and allow them to spend more time doing what they love – teaching their kids. For our unique learners, there is also a continued opportunity to help them grow in ways that address their personal needs. 

Key Responsibilities:

Actively build up our foundational design system with our DS Designer and Director of Product Design.  This entails heavily auditing existing workflows and adopting a base library resource into atomic molecules and organisms that meet our repeated use. You will also build out documentation and lead governance practices for our design system. 
Share the design function in a cross-functional PDE (Product Design Engineering) pod (Teaching and Learning Solutions) to conceptualize and deliver intuitive product experiences. This work will be abstracted into DS components. 
Partner in defining key product problems and shape strategic solutions with product managers and internal full-stack developers. Visualizations would include user journeys and task flows. 
Establish and implement new UX design patterns to reduce complexity and cognitive load. 
Report to the Director of Product Design and contribute to a newly formed PDE org and design guild.
Collaborate with developers (primarily full-stack) for education around design system patterns, improving iterative product development delivery and increasing the accuracy of high-fi implementation.
Craft design vision in Figma through end-to-end screen flows and low-fi to high-fi prototypes.
Conduct user research to identify user pain points and mental models to create and improve design solutions. 
Note: This role is not a creative marketing design function.

Desired Skills and Qualifications: 

Between 3-6 years of professional experience as a Product Designer embedded in a cross-functional pod/team, preferably in tech startups or design-forward agile enterprises. 
Minimum 2 years of recent IC experience building out a design system for code implementation – ideally utilized by more than one product engineering team or for multiple products. 
A strong portfolio showcasing highlights of capabilities and approaches to tackling product challenges. This would feature your methodologies, key low-fi artifacts, and delivered output. 
Ideally a degree in Graphic Design or UX Design with strengths in visual craft
Strong design of tools of the craft mastery of Figma and Figjam. You love to geek out about the latest techniques and tool improvements.
Exceptional creativity in ideation, problem-solving skills, and a keen eye for typographic layout.
Mastery of user-centered design principles, systems thinking, and agile methodologies
Strong understanding of front-end development (HTML, CSS) principles.
Strong perspective on successful collaboration with design engineers and educating full stack engineers 
Effective and concise communication skills for effective distributed  and async collaboration
Preferred Qualifications:

Past wins in elevating organizational design maturity and methods for collaborating with development teams.
How you are a self-drviven owner for company design initiatives with project/program management practices 
Strong knowledge management and workflow documentation in platforms like Notion or Confluence
Expertise in content strategy (ux copy writing) and stylization in SASS product experiences
Interest in the education field or work experience at education technology companies 
Active curiosity in design trends, techniques, and emerging patterns in product design, AI, and workflow tools.
Experience with conducting user research to iteratively improve your designs
*The Freelance Product Designer role is a contract opportunity, and while our contract n2y-ers are incredibly valued members of our team, this role is unfortunately not eligible for full-time benefits.

These qualifications are general guidelines for success, however, we understand that not all candidates will have experience in each area. If you have skills and experience that may be transferable to this role and share our passion for our mission and values, we would love to hear from you!

n2y cultivates a fun, collaborative and innovative work environment where diversity is embraced, encouraged, and empowered. Our teams are diligent, informed, and tireless in their work serving individuals with special needs. n2y’s team members are encouraged to learn, work, play, serve, donate, communicate, and advocate. We keep the needs of individuals with disabilities at the forefront of each day with outstanding teammates to help us meet those needs.

n2y offers a competitive compensation and benefits package including health, dental, vision, life, and disability insurance. It also has a company matching 401(k) savings plan.

n2y is committed to providing a Drug-Free Workplace for all employees.