Manager, Product Design - Internal Tools and B2B

Optimum•Town of Oyster Bay, NY

About The Position

We are Optimum, a leader in the fast-paced world of connectivity, and we're on the hunt for enthusiastic professionals to join our team! We understand that connectivity isn't just a luxury anymore – it's a necessity that empowers lives, fuels businesses, and drives innovation. A career at Optimum means you'll be enabling progress and enhancing lives by providing reliable, high-speed connectivity solutions that keep the world connected. We owe our success to our amazing product, commitment to our people and the connections we make in every community. If you are resourceful, collaborative, team-oriented and passionate about delivering consistent excellence, Optimum is the Company for you! We are Optimum!Job SummaryWe're looking for a manager of product design to lead design for our internal tools including sales and care agent experiences assisted by AI, powerful mobile tools to aid our installation and repair techs, and efficient self-serve workflows for our B2B customers. This role reports directly to the VP of Product Design and Research. You're the ideal candidate if you are tirelessly empathetic to the pain points of the user and are passionate about delivering efficient design solutions that are optimized for their intents. You'll go beyond surface-level issues, using data to uncover the root cause of problems. You'll lead a team of dedicated product designers, work closely with UX Research for signals and validation, and collaborate with our Design Systems lead to unify product design under a single design system architecture. We're building a team culture rooted in timely feedback, transparency, and mentorship as we navigate a period of significant company transformation. This collaborative role involves working closely with product owners, Engineering, and other stakeholders. You'll seek truth in data, synthesize requirements, champion design strategy, facilitate discovery workshops to gain alignment, review design solutions, and guide story grooming and sprint planning.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in a relevant field, or significant experience in UX research that has driven substantial business impact.
At least 10 years of professional digital product design experience.
A minimum of 3 years of direct experience managing, coaching, and developing mid to senior-level designers.
Proven ability to build high-performing design teams through effective hiring, growth, and retention strategies.
A strong track record of successfully translating business and user needs into impactful and intuitive product solutions.
Extensive experience collaborating with diverse cross-functional peers and stakeholders, including product managers, data scientists, designers, engineers, legal/policy teams, communications, and marketing

Responsibilities

Plan, resource, and manage all product design for internal tools.
Collaborate closely with our Unified Design Systems lead to ensure a consistent experience across channels and coordinate omni-channel evolution
Partner with UX Research to define research needs, prioritize efforts, and ensure designs are informed by data and validated assumptions before development.
Represent Product Design for internal tools in roadmap and sprint planning activities, advocating for both the user and business needs, influencing prioritization, calling out dependencies, and weighing in with best practices.
Proactively engage with stakeholders to gain and maintain alignment on design initiatives.
Lead discovery workshops, planning sessions, and design reviews, contributing valuable insights and identifying needs for research and success metrics.
Thoroughly vet and adjust requirements with user and business intents in mind
Coach and mentor product designers, providing candid and empathetic feedback in a timely and constructive manner, establish and manage employee goals, and facilitate growth opportunities
Routinely optimize ways of working for maximum efficiency and productivity
Help teams overcome obstacles and complete work
Adapt in-flight strategies when necessary while mitigating lost productivity and/or morale