Research & Development - Design Strategy Manager

**At RØDE we are Passionate about Audio**

Want to work for one of the fastest-growing, most innovative manufacturer-exporters in audio technology in the world today?

The Design Strategy Manager will be the strategic lead for design and UX operations at RØDE, coordinating product and UX design work according to best practise principles and processes to deliver outcomes that bring together user-centred design and business strategy.

Working with a team including Industrial Designers, UX specialists, researchers and packaging technologists, this role acts as the conduit between the Customer team and the rest of the business, ensuring that user-centred design principles are at the heart of business decision making.

This includes consulting with product development and engineering teams to run user-centred design workflows for product ideation and continuous improvement.

**About Us**

Part of The Freedman Group, RØDE is a leading manufacturer of high-quality microphones and audio equipment, which can be found in studios, venues, on-location, and in the hands of creatives in every corner of the world. Our products are designed and primarily manufactured by our industry-leading team in Sydney and are exported to over 119 countries globally through more than 6000 dealers, including Amazon, Best Buy, Sweetwater, Guitar Center, Thomann and JB Hi-Fi. Our employees are passionate, hard working, talented and are pivotal to our success.

**Your responsibilities will include**:

- Coordinating and steering user-centred design workflows for new product development, including:

- Working with product managers to define roadmap opportunities
- Running cross-functional design workshops at each stage of the development process, ensuring that the customer target, needs, jobs to be done, technical parameters are clearly defined and understood by all stakeholders
- Creating overall timelines for product design processes, and holding others accountable for delivering on required tasks
- Working with the Industrial Design team and UX specialists to ensure design work reflects the user needs as well as being congruent with the wider business strategy
- Facilitating cross-functional design workshops, guiding participants through various activities including prototyping, ideation, and brainstorming, while focusing the group's attention on user-centred results
- Creating business presentations at each stage of the process, to keep stakeholders aligned and provide a clear documentation trail of work as it progresses.

**You will require the following skills and experience to be successful**:

- 10+ years of experience in product design or UX roles with an emphasis on managing user-centric design processes
- Significant experience planning and running workshops using established design methodologies including Double Diamond, Lean UX and Agile UX
- Great interpersonal skills, able to bring the best out of diverse cross-functional teams to ensure balanced contributions
- Exceptional presentation skills, able to present complex information in motivational and intuitive ways that are easy to understand including infographics, diagrams, graphs, and charts. Experienced at presenting at C-suite level.

Our campus is designed to create an atmosphere which reflects our love of cutting edge technology, collaboration, and our deep connection to music, film and all things audio. Our production facilities are cutting-edge and are constantly expanding as we increase our capability with new manufacturing technologies and processes. RØDE's investment in our in-house capability is aggressive, unmatched in the industry. Our plant boasts the finest technologies in metal engineering and production, Surface-Mount Technology electronics production, military grade finishing, plastic-injection mould manufacture, and a brand-new, best-practice toolmaking facility.