Job Description

The Opportunity

Alma is a K-12 Student Information System that empowers educators to work more effectively through time savings, data insights, and community connection between home and school. 

We are looking for a Sr. Product Designer who is energized by a mission-driven environment, isn’t afraid to get into the weeds, and can make complex processes feel simple. 

Responsibilities 

• Regularly engage with users, prospects and other stakeholders to uncover their needs and goals, and to further your own understanding of the wide range of processes and educational priorities within K-12 schools and districts. 
• Collaborate with product managers and use research findings to identify problems we can solve for customers that align with business goals. 
• Translate user insights into design artifacts at various levels of fidelity – iterating quickly through user flows, wireframes, prototypes, and pixel-perfect comps. Projects range in scope from small enhancements to comprehensive new features. 
• Partner with our engineering team to validate design feasibility and support a smooth handoff from design to development and QA.
• Provide and solicit feedback effectively and graciously, supporting the growth and improvement of both your own work and that of your colleagues. Mentor & thought-partner with other designers on the team, through design critiques and knowledge sharing.
• Contribute to the expansion and maintenance of our design systems and UI patterns to ensure a consistent design language across products.
• Seek out ways to refine and optimize design processes, including research, documentation, handoff, and critiques to support team efficiency, growth, and scalability.
• Advocate for accessibility and inclusivity within our product and process. 

Qualities / Experiences We Are Looking For 

• You have proven experience in designing and shipping elegant solutions for complex digital products from start to finish, ideally in B2B/Enterprise software environments. 
• You’re comfortable with all aspects of product design, from user research and prototyping to visual design and copywriting – while always keeping UX best practices and accessibility considerations in mind. 
• Your portfolio demonstrates your design process from initial concepts to final implementation, showcasing your role and contributions for each project.
• You can produce prototypes and high fidelity designs using industry-standard design tools, such as Figma or Sketch. HTML/CSS experience is a bonus. 
• You’re confident and curious in your approach to discovering and validating user needs across a diverse range of user types through both observational/conversational and data-driven methods. 
• You’re able to manage ambiguity, work independently, and prioritize multiple milestones and deliverables effectively in a fast-paced environment. 
• You’re able to explore multiple design solutions and iterate based on user research and stakeholder feedback, ensuring user needs are met within business and technical constraints.
• You have strong verbal, written, and visual communication skills and can clearly communicate the ‘why’ behind your designs to a variety of stakeholders.

Bonus Qualifications

• Familiarity with K-12 education or prior EdTech experience
• Familiarity with front-end development (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc.)
• Previous experience at a start-up

How We Work:

When working as a Product Designer at Alma, you can expect to: 

• Work with a distributed team that is spread across the Pacific, Mountain, and Central time zones
• Collaborate via documents, Slack, Whimsical, Figma, Jira tickets, and frequent video calls
• Join daily standups, weekly team and 1:1 meetings, and monthly company all-hands, as well as as-needed project-specific meetings
• Interview users/stakeholders via videoconference on a weekly basis (except maybe when they’re on summer vacation)

Who We Are:

Alma is a cloud-based student information system (SIS) that serves K-12 administrators, teachers, parents, and students. Our Product team is small and mission-driven. We serve schools and districts across the US and internationally, and aim to improve education by empowering the greatest learning resource that students have at school: educators. 

As individuals, we take ownership over our roles and responsibilities. As a team, our solutions have both an educational & societal impact, and we take that very seriously. We are nimble, fast-paced, evolving, and determined to make a difference.

The students, parents, and educators Alma serves come from every walk of life: they attend public, private, and charter schools in cities, suburbs, and rural areas. Our users include English language learners, people with disabilities, gender minorities, families experiencing housing instability, and students who will be the first in their family to go to college.

It is fundamental to Alma’s mission that we continue to build a team with diverse lived experiences and perspectives to better anticipate and serve the needs of all students. To that end, we hire for culture add over culture fit and strive to create an environment where all team members’ voices are heard and welcomed. We are committed to maintaining a workplace where people can be themselves each day. 

All Alma team members receive health benefits, a retirement account, significant paid time off and paid holidays, and a competitive base salary.

A Note to Applicants:

Studies have shown that people from historically underestimated groups are less likely to apply for jobs unless they believe they meet every one of the qualifications as described in a job description. We know from experience and past hires that the best person for this role will likely not check every single box listed here. We encourage you to apply, even if you don't believe you meet all of the qualifications described.

Alma Technologies is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We evaluate qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, veteran status, and other protected characteristics.

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