Senior Content Designer

Redmond, WA, United States

The Fluent team is looking for a Senior Content Designer who, at the core, thrives working deep inside design systems to build elegant and seamless experiences across Microsoft products and platforms.

In Fluent, we believe in the power of our extended community to create and deliver holistic experiences that drive business impact at scale. We celebrate diverse styles, voices and views reflecting the diversity of our customers, both inside Microsoft and with our customers on the outside. Nurturing and continuously evolving this culture are our shared responsibilities, because we create better products together. We believe designing in the open empowers us all to move fast and build experiences without seams.

Responsibilities

Strategy

Understands business metrics and translates company goals and objectives into customer experiences. Identifies and guides others to identify complex customer needs and business requirements. Drives product content planning to fulfill identified needs. Understands, envisions, collaborates with and influences multiple Fluent extensions and their written content strategies.

Knows the design system and demonstrates knowledge of both Design and Engineering needs, as well as our customer needs, how competitors meet those challenges, and where their solutions fall short. Proposes new design-led efforts to change how customers think about Microsoft, our products, and our Fluent design system.

Translates business and user needs and technology constraints into solution concepts that are meaningful, easy to use, and engaging. Concepts and iterates for complex products in design meetings to improve product designs and structure flows. Utilizes a variety of perspectives when concepting including Technology, Business, and Marketing. Contributes to ongoing design system development, driving expansion of the design system across teams. Works directly with Design and Engineering team members, program managers, and developers to define and iterate on new and existing product features. Defines new processes to create aligned product outcomes. Synthesizes complex ideas, articulates user wants, and drives data-informed solutions.

Defines and prioritizes product plans based on multiple factors such as user insights and business needs. Creates clarity for other members of the team Influences the prioritization of the product backlog. Identifies needs that are not spoken and includes them in end-to-end design plan and process.

Stucture

Combines design thinking with design execution to produce usable and intuitive components, patterns and usage guidance. Collaborates with product owners and development team members to shepherd end-to-end experiences from concept to product shipment. Raises the content design bar with innovative solution strategies and experience design recommendations.

Creates and optimizes sound Information Architecture (IA) for the purpose of coherent task completion. Structures product content, develops taxonomies, crafts navigation, names components/controls, and defines the messaging hierarchy to make information accessible, usable, and understandable.

Surface

Contributes to and articulates a shared vision and tools to create, collaborate, and build effective products at scale. Applies execution of voice principles, terminology, and language usage.

Drives terminology decision-making to bring an informed point of view, experience, and data/research. Communicates in a purposeful, concise, and conversational manner. Advises on how to embed key concepts, names, terms, and copy which are aligned with customers' intent and mental models. Champions best practices across the organization which promote clear, concise, and meaningful language that is aligned with Microsoft's voice and style standards.

Develops a synthesis of user insights and compares to data to identify larger issues.

Uses digital and physical tools to demonstrate design to stakeholders and/or for research. Advocates for prototyping. Helps create prototypes in accordance with company's brand and guidelines, and invents/improves guidelines when existing guidelines are unclear. Develops deep domain knowledge across the design system and how to solve our partners’ problems. Mentors peers in multiple areas of expertise. Is recognized as a content design subject matter expert for the company, adding perspective such as tone in customer journey, brand, and influencing partners outside of Design. Deeply understands broader business landscape, and leverages knowledge to drive the success of the team and organization as a whole. Crafts and coaches others on crafting clear written communication to guide customers through an experience, and pairs with visual design. Presents to teams such as Design and Engineering to receive feedback and understand user needs. Drives and creates proposals for simpler, and better solutions. Looks beyond their domain to engage with Microsoft's wider product portfolio and content design community.

Strategic Value

Uses and creates Fluent design system components, patterns, voice principles, and usage guidance. Helps extend style and usage guidance for multiple products. Drives innovation and investment in the future of content design.

Helps others use the Fluent design system, and drives consistency and alignment within the team. Advocates for the Fluent design system and style standards across product group(s).

Applies marketing strategy to devise product positioning, messaging direction, and creative execution guidance for use across our Fluent touch points.

Effective Communication

Facilitates brainstorming sessions and/or workshops to answer critical business questions through design thinking, rapid prototyping, and testing ideas.

Influences to amplify individual and team capabilities, expand design thinking, and broaden the impact of work. Conveys confidence, communicates the vision, backs decisions and recommendations with data, and gathers frustration-free feedback in design reviews with teammates and stakeholders, consistently leading to better project results.

Presents ideas and concepts at all stages of the design process—research and analysis, design concepts, usability testing—adapting presentations for different audiences.

Other

Embody our culture and values

Qualifications

Required/Minimum Qualifications:

Bachelor's Degree in Arts, Digital Communications, UX Design, Human Computer Interaction, Communications, English, Journalism, or related field AND 4+ years experience working in product or service design, copywriting, technical writing, writing (e.g. for marketing, advertising, e-commerce), brand design, or brand marketing

Master's Degree in Arts, Digital Communications, UX Design, Human Computer Interaction, Communications, English, Journalism, or related field AND 3+ years experience working in product or service design, copywriting, technical writing, writing (e.g. for marketing, advertising, e-commerce), brand design, or brand marketing

OR equivalent experience.

Preferred Qualifications

Demonstrated experience crafting product user interfaces and usage guidance for design systems, across a range of platforms

Excellence in product content design and strategy gets your work noticed and appreciated—and your senior skillset shows in your playbook of uniquely honed tools, approaches, and solutions.

Fluent in Figma.

You’re innately curious. About design, about the customer landscape—you fuel your imagination with things big and small, so you can apply what you know to solve new problems.

Communication skills that extend to your relationships. You know building relationships both within and beyond your team is key for driving impact-oriented collaboration—and ultimately making a difference for customers.

A growth mindset—there’s always more to learn. Confidence and humility can coexist. You’re quick to own mistakes (we all make them) and willing to reconsider and explore ideas.

Content Design IC4 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $112,000 - $218,400 per year. There is a different range applicable to specific work locations, within the San Francisco Bay area and New York City metropolitan area, and the base pay range for this role in those locations is USD $145,800 - $238,600 per year.

Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here: https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-corporate-pay

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. Consistent with applicable law, all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, citizenship, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, immigration status, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran or military status, race, ethnicity, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable local laws, regulations and ordinances. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations.

#J-18808-Ljbffr