User Experience Designer

Azavea is looking for a mid-level to senior User Experience Designer to join our User Experience Team. You will investigate user needs and behaviors, then design modern web applications that support them. Requirements vary, but our projects are generally oriented around workflows involving location data and maps. We welcome qualified candidates from all walks of life and value diversity in our company.

About Azavea
Azavea designs and builds geospatial software to address some of the biggest challenges facing our society and planet: climate change, energy, infrastructure, democracy, forests, and water. As a certified B Corporation, our purpose is to create state-of-the-art open source software tools and apply them for civic, social, and environmental impact. Our clients include cities, federal agencies, nonprofits, philanthropies, and commercial organizations across the region, nation, and world. Today, we are building software to bring transparency to the apparel supply chain, project wildfire risk, assess COVID vulnerability, empower electoral redistricting, measure stormwater runoff, and support urban forests.

Azavea is, among other things…
• A company committed to introspection, inclusion, and impact.
• A culture that emphasizes healthy work-life balance, including flexible work schedules, parental leave, and fun, optional after-work events.
• A roster of smart, caring, fascinating people across a range of roles, all interested in doing the work to make the world a better place.
• A user experience team eager to welcome you into their ranks, ally with you, and provide any help you need.
• Pre- and post-pandemic: A brightly lit, bike friendly, spacious Philadelphia office close to public transit and Reading Terminal Market, with a large space for community events.

User Experience at Azavea
User Experience professionals at Azavea have a seat at every table and are involved in projects from start to finish. From proposals, through discovery and design, and throughout implementation, we are there. We partner with clients, PMs, engineers, and analysts to unpack problems and craft custom, user-centered solutions to address them. We bring a range of skills to the job – and hone them on the job – across the spectrum of research, design, and development. While each project tends to have a single designer, we support each other laterally through weekly critiques and countless other ways. And we constantly learn – directly from the work, from 10% projects, and from cross-team initiatives like our DEI Council and our Fun Committee.

What you’ll do

• Design user-centered, accessible, responsive web apps that support user needs and business goals
• Lead project kickoffs and workshops with our clients
• Perform discovery research to understand user needs, behaviors, and expectations
• Run usability testing and gather feedback to inform your designs
• Brainstorm, sketch, wireframe, and prototype with our internal teams and clients
• Have strong opinions when contributing ideas and participating in discussions, design critiques, and client meeting
• Collaborate with product managers, designers, engineering, and business development on current and future projects
• Clearly communicate ideas, intentions, and designs to engineering teams and clients

Skills and Qualifications

• Desire to continually evolve your user-centered design skills
• Firm understanding of modern UX design principles and web app design patterns
• Comfortable grasp of visual design fundamentals (color, type, alignment, …)
• Proficiency in modern prototyping/design software such as Sketch or Figma
• A portfolio that clearly showcases your abilities and experiences
• Solid communication skills and the ability to work within a team environment
• Helpful, but not necessary
• Visual/graphic design expertise
• Working knowledge (or better) of Javascript and React

What You Can Expect
During the COVID pandemic, we are all working remotely, but our Philadelphia headquarters is located in a brightly lit office on the 5th floor of a converted factory building in the Callowhill neighborhood, a short walk from Center City, the Reading Terminal Market, and SEPTA subway and regional rail stations. For bicyclists, we have in-house bike parking, showers, and lockers. The office itself is assembled as an open office plan with several smaller rooms for team meetings and concentration time. We have flex-time to deal with personal stuff, and most people work a 40 – 45 hour week on a regular schedule. After the first six months, our staff can also spend up to 10% of their time on an open source, professional development, or R&D project. Recent 10% time projects include experiments with machine learning, new libraries, product development, and data science techniques. 

We offer a salary commensurate with skills and experience and a benefits package that includes:
• Fully subsidized health care, dental, prescription plan, including for spouse/partner and children
• Fully subsidized life and long term disability insurance, plus voluntary short term disability insurance
• Medical reimbursement plan to cover what the health insurance does not
• Retirement plan with matching percentage
• Almost 4 weeks paid vacation plus sick/personal time off
• Family and medical leave
• Flexible work schedule
• Paid maternity and paternity leave
• Child care subsidy
• Paid time off for voting and volunteering
• Education assistance plan
• Student loan assistance
• Public transit and biking reimbursement plans
• Monthly lunches on the house
• 10% time for Research or Training Projects
• Profit-sharing bonus plan
• Financial transparency through an open book policy
• Kind, capable, and thoughtful colleagues 

We prohibit discrimination based on race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, veteran status, military service, disability unrelated to job requirements, marital status, or domestic partner status.

Please include a link to your portfolio– along with any other materials you think relevant.