UX Manager
The Sophos UX organization is seeking a UX Manager to lead one of its four business-unit UX teams. The first preference for location is Cranberry, Pennsylvania near Pittsburgh. The second location preference is Burlington, Massachusetts near Boston. The third location preference is anywhere in the Eastern US time zone regardless of country.
Why Sophos UX?
The Sophos UX organization is a multi-disciplinary, international team of UX professionals in eight countries, working with teams innovating in even more places, to serve partners and customers worldwide. We are a blended UX organization. We know UX is multi-disciplinary, not just design, and UX professionals are a mélange of skills and experiences. We have UX generalists and UX specialists in interaction design, content, translation, visual design, information architecture, UX research, UX evaluation, analytics, multi-media design, etc. To create our balanced teams, we pay more attention to that blend of skills than we do to titles. People like working at Sophos. The morale is buoyant. It is little wonder. It is easy to be positive knowing you are part of something bigger, seeing that you are succeeding, motivated by being busy innovating, and experiencing the reward of protecting people.
Cybersecurity is a UX issue.
Cybersecurity threats increase exponentially every day. IT security products have become as complex as the networks and devices they secure. With a significant, and dramatically widening, shortage of skilled cybersecurity professionals Sophos understands that individual cybersecurity experts must cover more, and cybersecurity must become accessible to a broader group of people. More people with less training must protect more devices, systems, and networks in their enterprises, businesses, and homes in an increasingly complex world. Making the complex available to people is a UX issue.
Sophos is using machine learning, deep learning neural-network algorithms, and AI to provide next-generation protection that is equally available to professional cybersecurity experts, IT generalists, and end users. Sophos UX is using our understanding of the struggles all people have managing cybersecurity to make cybersecurity intuitive. Augmenting human capabilities gracefully is a UX issue.
UX Manager position
The UX manager will be responsible for the product UX of the Sophos Network Security Group which develops industry leading Firewall, SG UTM (Unified Threat Management), Secure Wi-Fi, and Secure Web Gateway products.
The UX manager will report to the Senior Director of User Experience as part of a large UX organization. The UX Manager will join a UX management team of other business unit UX managers, and specific UX discipline managers. The position will lead an existing team of UX design people that will grow in the coming year. Currently the team has UX people in three locations in two different countries. We’re expanding the team into other locations around the world.
Responsibilities
- Strategic ownership of the product UX aspects of the Network Security Group business unit. You will work with business unit PM and Dev to anticipate and plan UX aspects.
- Operational management of multiple UX resources working on multiple products. You will program manage the resource plan, distribution of work, and work quality of the UX team.
- Mentorship and growth of the skills and experience of the members of your team.
- Tactical ownership of some product deliverables. This is a working manager position; a percentage of your time is as an individual contributor.
- Collaborate with other business unit UX managers, and specific UX discipline managers, to deliver a unified experience.
- Manage a remote team. While you may sit with one part of this business unit PM and Dev resources, your team will be sitting with other product development groups in other locations.
Qualifications
- Appropriate degrees and/or experience in UX Design (interaction design, information architecture, or visual design) required.
- A background in UX research and/or UX evaluation is a plus
- Previous experience as a UX manager of multi-disciplinary UX teams is preferred, however non-managerial experience leading multi-disciplinary project teams will be considered.
- Experience working with remote team members and managing projects across multiple time zones.
- Experience designing global products, working with UX documentation, UX translation, and UX multimedia teams is a plus.
- National and international travel will be required.
- You do not need to already know cybersecurity. But experience in cybersecurity products is a plus. You will learn and become very familiar with cybersecurity as part of your job.
- Ability to learn fairly technical concepts in the networking area in order to be able to make them intuitive to users.
- You need to enjoy making complex things simple for users of all kinds.