Design

Mission

The design organization at Redivis is responsible for conceptualizing and executing creative assets and defining how our product and services look and work.

Design's guiding lights are transparency and empathy. A design is successful when it deeply understands the user and meets them where they're at with the right level of insight. We are solving very complex user problems and strive to update traditional processes with elegance, excitement, and clarity.

Workflow and tools

Our design work is process-driven, research-oriented, and rooted in getting input from as many sources as possible throughout. We work closely with engineering, product, marketing, support, and executive teams to represent the user and advocate for clarity and usability in all aspects of Redivis.

We use Figma and Google docs for the bulk of our design work.

Career progression

Individual contributor (IC)	Manager	Salary level
Junior designer		2
Designer		3
Senior designer		4
Lead designer	Design manager	6
Principal designer	Senior design manager	7
Creative director	Design director	8

Leadership and tracks

Everyone being promoted from Senior designer onward will be expected to step into a leadership role depending on what track they're on.

Levels

Junior designer

Theme	Proficiency
Achievements	New to the professional field, 0-2 years' experience, school or demo work
Scope of work	Solve specific function-level problems (e.g. add item to cart)
Process	Work within processes established by team lead
Team	Part of a team
Meetings	Attending the meeting
Core design skills	Strong in one, capable in two
Soft skill focus	Professionalism
Leadership skill focus	NA

Designer

Theme	Proficiency
Achievements	Roughly 3-5 years' experience, contributed to a few shipped projects
Scope of work	Solve specific product capabilities (e.g. shopping cart)
Process	Work within processes established by team lead
Team	Part of a team, communicate with cross-functional peers
Meetings	Contributing to the meeting
Core design skills	Strong in two, capable in two
Soft skill focus	Communication and presentation
Leadership skill focus	NA

Senior designer

Theme	Proficiency
Achievements	Roughly 5-10 years' experience, contributed to multiple shipped products
Scope of work	Lead the solution of a product area (e.g. "the conversion funnel")
Process	Develop the process/approach for tackling a problem
Team	Leading a team that's been given to you, collaborating with cross-functional peers
Meetings	Driving the meeting
Core design skills	Expert in one, strong in two, capable in two
Soft skill focus	Facilitation, listening
Leadership skill focus	Strategy, empathy, compassion

Lead Designer / Design manager

Theme	Proficiency
Achievements	Roughly 10-15 years' experience, delivered successful work at the scope of "product areas"
Scope of work	Leading the solution of undefined problem spaces (e.g. "How do people complete a transaction?")
Process	Develop the process/approach for tackling a problem
Team	Create the team you need, defining the problem with cross-functional leads
Meetings	Driving the meeting
Core design skills	Expert in one, strong in two, capable in two
Soft skill focus	Confidence and swagger
Leadership skill focus	Planning, mentorship

Principal Designer / Senior design manager

Theme	Proficiency
Achievements	Roughly 15-20 years' experience, has led teams in framing and solving hard problems, and has driven innovative efforts that uncovered new value with new kinds of experiences.
Scope of work	Leading the solution of broader undefined problem spaces (e.g. "How do people shop online?")
Process	Establish a philosophy/mindset for how the team approaches its work
Team	Create the team you need, defining the problem with cross-functional leads
Meetings	Being consulted in the meeting for insight
Core design skills	Expert in one, strong in two, capable in two (might start to drop off)
Soft skill focus	Advocating for design in the broader company context
Leadership skill focus	Operations

Creative Director / Design Director

Theme	Proficiency
Achievements	20+ years' experience, has led teams in creating foundational, groundbreaking design work
Scope of work	Multiple user experiences (e.g. "What is the end-to-end shopper experience?")
Process	Facilitate and consult on the creation and iteration of team processes
Team	Establish the organizational structure, define roles, and expand the team
Meetings	Stakeholder for whom the meeting exists
Core design skills	Expert in one, strong in two, capable in two (might start to drop off)
Soft skill focus	Influence in a broader, external design community
Leadership skill focus	Vision

Core design skills

All designers will be evaluated on their performance in core design skills, depending on what role they have.

Information architecture

Organizing, structuring, and labeling content in an effective and sustainable way. Includes building out ontologies and relationships to help users find information and complete tasks.

Capable

Understands complex relational structures and makes changes to them when necessary to improve them. Can inform others of the structure and speak with insight to other teams about it.

Strong

Deeply understands relationships and is able to drastically edit existing relationships and create new ones for simple and complex product areas. Can reliably teach team members the systems and answer any questions that come up.

Expert

Fully understands systems and their implications for entire products. Builds new ontologies for entire products and is the expert on communicating the system throughout the company. Leads others in building systems that span multiple people or departments.

Interaction design

Creating products, environments, systems, and services that users interact with to accomplish their goals.

Capable

Designs interfaces that are straightforward and easily understandable. Enables a user's successful interactions with a system. Efficiently draws on existing patterns of communication.

Strong

Designs inspiring interfaces for complex problems. Contributes to the product's interaction guidelines via solid research and developing best practices over time. Contributes to creating innovative new interface interactions when needed.

Expert

Develops product-wide interaction guidelines and resources, and educates others on how to best use them. Works across departments to improve the user's experience in all aspects of their interaction with Redivis. Deeply understands many different users' full interaction with Redivis and can represent their perspective in high-level decisions.

Prototyping

Building an interactive model to test designs quickly and cost-effectively.

Capable

Creates basic prototypes for key interactions and is efficient at incorporating feedback into quick iterations.

Strong

Builds high fidelity prototypes quickly that closely mimic the usability of potential solution. Proactively seek out people to test these prototypes and manage the process of improving them. Able to make a call for when it's worth investing more time in the prototype vs moving to another step in the process.

Expert

Master of prototyping software and procedures, and leads team adoption and practice. Builds guides and templates for others to use. Structures systems for feedback and iteration, and gives high quality feedback on both the content and the process for others' work.

Research

Exploring a question via quantitative and qualitative investigation and sharing insights gained via analysis and synthesis. Includes user research, surveys, observation, usability testing, user analytics, and product research.

Capable

Executes on research plans to answer a research question. Participates in distilling and reporting insights.

Strong

Frames meaningful research questions and builds out comprehensive research plans. Executes multiple types of research very well and with little oversight. Is able to drive synthesis of gathered data points to uncover meaningful insights and communicate them in a way that inspires others.

Expert

Leads teams in generating research projects to discover and answer broad questions about user behavior. Advises on methods for successfully executing brilliant research. Guides analysis of data points toward insights that revolutionize understanding of the subject. Communicates research with company-level impact.

Strategy

Developing a plan or policy to achieve a major goal or aim.

Capable

Devises effective documentation for how a problem or project will be approached with an appropriate balance of high level insight and detail. Seeks out and understands the relevant large goals and forces at play, and accounts for them appropriately in the plan.

Strong

Understands all pressing aspects of the business and product and accounts for them when researching and creating a plan. Creates organized and accessible plans that sensibly solve issues, which they distribute and get buy-in for. Contributes to templates and planning resources for others.

Expert

Fully understands the contexts of the business and product and speaks to them with the appropriate level of detail and insight. Produces high quality plans for complex and/or long-range problems and projects involving many people or teams. Guides others in their strategic undertakings and drives development of high level design templates and processes.

Visual design

Improving aesthetic appeal and usability via typography, space, layout, and color.

Capable

Draws on aesthetic principles to deliver beautiful, usable assets and/or product interfaces that are consistent with the Redivis brand and product guidelines. Able to clearly communicate complex and information-dense concepts visually without overwhelming the viewer.

Strong

Develops multiple types of visual assets quickly that consistently fit with existing materials. Contributes to guidelines for our brand and product interface and works to share these across different teams.

Expert

Creates and distributes exciting and innovative visuals that resonate with a wide range of users. Fully understands and drives our visual guidelines forward in a sustainable way with company-wide effects. Advocates for visual consistency and beauty in all aspects of our brand and product. Educates and gives feedback on visual design happening on different teams/projects.

Writing

Designing the conversation between Redivis and the user. Includes building and maintaining the words people see and hear when they interact with our product and assets.

Capable

Writes copy and product content that clearly and succinctly communicates information or a call to action. Follows brand voice guidelines and maintains consistency across many different product areas or assets.

Strong

Writes inspiring copy and content that pushes forward our brand while fully supporting a user's needs for information and understanding. Contributes to developing our brand voice guidelines and advocates for consistency and clarity across teams.

Expert

Consistently produces copy and content that fits perfectly in the context it lives in. Creates new ways of relating to users and drives our brand forward. Able to contribute to copy and phrasing for all areas of the company and regularly consults with different teams and departments. Educates others on brand voice guidelines and creates systems to enable their success.

Resources

System adapted from Org Design for Design Orgs by Peter Merholz and Kristin Skinner