Description
Blue Nile is currently seeking a Principal UX Designer to join our ever-evolving user experience effort. We are looking for someone that can bring strong, user-centered design skills and business knowledge to help us craft and improve our customer experience at scale. You have solid business acumen and believe in the power of strategic design to differentiate a business and increase customer loyalty.
You will be a leader of our collaborative team, building new and exciting functionality and features. You will be sharing your vision and design approach with a small team of passionate designers who are responsible for the execution of strong interaction design solutions for online products.
As a principal user experience designer, you will lead the full spectrum of user interaction (visual design, user flows, prototypes, wireframes, research, etc.) in a fast-paced environment. You will evaluate the current user experience and will work with our user experience design team, product owners, executives, and engineers to develop improvements that can be measured, both heuristically and quantitatively.
This position will partner closely with the Technology, Analytics, Merchandising, Brand, and Site Development teams. The ideal candidate will thrive in an environment of continuous innovation, must be able to present complex wireframes, prototypes, and visual solutions to internal stakeholders, and communicate the research methodology and technology behind the proposed ideas and executions.
Primary Responsibilities:

• Lead the user interface design and prototyping through the full design and development cycle (including concepts, information architecture, visual design, and interaction design) of key initiatives
• Consult with multiple cross-functional teams to produce effective and delightful interactive experiences through advanced knowledge of HCI principles and visual design
• Partner with Engineering to define and evaluate the effectiveness of our Design System and evangelize use and expansion across the organlization
• Interpret quantitative and qualitative behavioral data and competitive analysis for insights into provable and viable design solutions
• Recommend solutions to problems and make design solution tradeoff recommendations between customer needs, business goals, technical complexities and brand guidelines
• Craft design artifacts like: personas, wireframes, process flows and interactive prototypes
• Mentor other designers in the creation of modern user interfaces with a focus on usability and simple, intuitive, and efficient user interaction
• Comfortable communicating at all levels of the organization and while building trust through results in an agile development environment

Qualifications:

• 7+ years' experience in interactive user experience design and development
• Degree in a relevant field (HCI, Graphic Design, Interaction Design, etc.)
• Demonstrated eCommerce and/or retail design experience
• Expert understanding of semantically sound and maintainable HTML5, CSS3 code and web scripting practices
• Mastery in creating high-quality user experiences; portfolio demonstrating advanced use of typography, color, imagery, grid systems, and well-crafted animation/transitions
• Advanced visual design skills with an eye for detail and ability to balance usability and interaction with brand standards and marketing effectiveness
• Strong interpersonal, analytical, verbal and written communication skills
• Demonstrated ability to influence and lead projects from concept to delivery and ongoing improvements
• Expert application of web standards, progressive enhancement, dynamic content retrieval, and responsive/adaptive design techniques
• Proven experience in developing and working within Design Systems
• Experience with usability studies/testing a plus
• Experience with Agile workflows strongly preferred
• Strong design thinking, human centered design skills

What we offer:

• Medical, Dental, and Vision Healthcare Coverage
• 401(k) with Company Match
• Paid Vacation
• Competitive Salaries
• Employee Discount
• Employee Referral Bonus