Director of Product Design

Description

Babbel is the world’s top-grossing and most effective language-learning app. No small feat, and no small challenge. In a moment rife with talk of walls, we’re building bridges — making the language-learning journey as exciting and empowering as possible, helping people forge new connections and participate in worlds bigger than their own.

Babbel is for everyone, not some niche or elite strata of learners. Everyone. That means reflecting the dynamism and diversity of our users, as much as possible, in the production of Babbel. We currently have 750 people from more than 50 nationalities working in our Berlin and New York offices. A culture of difference and dignity is critical to how we’ve connected with millions of users in every hemisphere.

We are looking for a Director of Product Design for our office in Berlin!

An exciting new role for a Director of Product Design, looking to stamp your mark on the world’s top-grossing and most effective language-learning app. In this role, you will own the visual and interaction design across the entire product, as well as how Babbel mobilizes user insights in order to iterate and improve our product. You’re ready to excite leadership and work tightly with Product & Engineering leadership to shape and direct a product vision for the future of Babbel. Whether working on something new or improving something old, you bring a zealous enthusiasm for putting our users at the centre of our product direction. You’ll inherit a talented design team that you will mentor, and grow. Your ideal workplace is a dynamic start-up style environment, where you collaborate across multifunctional areas, to further embed design into Babbel’s DNA.

You will

• Take a key role in our leadership team, to innovate how design happens at Babbel and how it is embedded in the product development cycle
• Champion the Product Design approach within multifunctional development teams, inspiring the other functions to adopt a design thinking approach throughout our processes and delivery
• Ensure great discovery across all teams, both in larger Design Thinking sessions, and in ongoing trialling and refinement
• Work closely with the Product & Engineering leadership, and report directly to the CPO
• Take high-level decisions at a strategic level, actively shaping and directing the product vision
• Integrate product designers, UX researchers and UX writers into a dynamic and cohesive product design team
• Mentor and inspire the design team to consistently improve and grow their skills

You are

• A mentor, with solid coaching skills
• A macro manager - you know how to delegate and trust your team
• Not actively designing day-to-day, but you know great design when you see it. Your keen eye and guidance helps your team to optimise their work
• Fun and relaxed

You have

• 5+ years of design experience and 3+ years of management experience
• Proven success as a line manager, leading a medium-sized team embedded into multifunctional development teams
• A well rounded and diverse background with experience in multiple digital products
• An ability to leverage UX research insights to inform product decisions, and to advocate for hypothesis-driven product design and development
• Shipped customer-facing products
• A user-centric approach and will advocate for our learners
• Experience managing budgets and costs
• Experience in internal communication roll-out strategy and ability to gain buy-in from stakeholders
• A passion for languages and love for design

Nice to have

• Experience working in agile and with OKRs
• Experience in edTech
• Experience in helping different disciplines and multiple teams innovate together

Why Babbel?

• A highly visible role with a global & strategic scope
• An opportunity to put your vast expertise into practice and shape the growth of Babbel
• A challenging environment and a lot of experimentation
• A lively startup atmosphere with friendly working hours
• Great company benefits, including a development budget
• A diverse and stimulating learning organisation
• An amazing office in Berlin's coolest district

Sounds good? We look forward to hearing from you!