Design Manager, Credit Software Product Design

The Company:

Morningstar DBRS is a leading provider of independent rating services and opinions for corporate and sovereign entities, financial institutions, and project and structured finance instruments globally. Rating more than 4,000 issuers and 60,000 securities, it is one of the top four credit rating agencies in the world.

Morningstar DBRS empowers investor success by bringing more transparency and a much-needed diversity of opinion in the credit rating industry. Our approach and size allow us to be nimble enough to respond to customers' needs in their local markets, but large enough to provide the necessary expertise and resources they require. Market innovators choose to work with us because of our agility, tech-forward approach, and exceptional customer service.

Morningstar DBRS is the next generation of credit ratings.

The Role:

We are looking to hire a design manager who is highly collaborative, has an excellent understanding of typography and visual composition, detail oriented, and self-directed to join the Morningstar DBRS team based in Chicago. As a Design Manager, you will manage a small team of designers in a highly collaborative environment that includes designers, product managers, technologists, editors, and analysts.

Our ideal candidate has a strong background in visual communication and graphic design with a keen eye for detail and experience working in a variety of mediums across print, digital, and environmental. We are looking for an individual that embraces a growth mindset, has a strong work ethic and critical thinking skills, and manages projects with a sense of curiosity, professionalism, kindness, and fun. You should have experience owning, planning, and driving projects to completion as well as managing, mentoring, and coaching early career designers. The role will collaborate very closely with corporate design and Morningstar DBRS product leaders in developing, executing, and maintaining our visual brand standards and producing highly engaging work with a standard of excellence.

This position is based in Chicago and is a hybrid role which requires working 3 days in the office.

Responsibilities:

Primary Focus

• Develop an in-depth understanding of our user base, business processes, design operations, creative process, and corporate systems.
• Guide complex problems of diverse scope, requiring in-depth analysis of multiple factors with a high degree of variability.
• Solve complex design problems and support team alignment, strategy, and prioritization creatively and effectively.

Leadership & Management

• Coach designers on tactics to clarify problem spaces, business goals, customer needs, career growth, personal development, etc.
• Responsible for the people management responsibilities of a small team of designers along with
  supervising their daily work.
• Provide creative direction that encompasses visual design and user experience.
• Nurture the individuals on your team, helping them realize their potential. You provide career guidance, and candor when critiquing individual's work and encourage them to improve.
• Cultivate a culture of team collaboration along with open and honest communication.

Qualifications:

• A bachelor's degree is required.
• Prior design management experience, 10+ years.
• A strong design portfolio with an emphasis on UX, typography, color, and visual communication
• A demonstrated ability to manage multiple complex projects concurrently.
• Proven success in and flexibility to facilitate global team collaboration.
• Strong leadership, communication, time management, problem solving, and analytical skills.
• Ability to influence decision-making processes and foster an environment of healthy team debate.
• Comfortable dealing with ambiguity and can keep a team on track.
• Effective at coaching teams and providing feedback to stakeholders/executives.
• Possess strong active listening skills.
• Experience with traditional and agile project-management frameworks is a plus.
• Hands-on experience or willingness to learn online project management software, Asana.

Our Employee Experience

You're joining an organization that demonstrates and values transparency, independence and long-term thinking. Sustainability and fairness are embedded in our investing analysis, in our operational decisions, in our people practices and in our community engagement. Individual flexibility - including when and where we work - and the ability to make choices that supportwork-life integration are central to our culture and operational practices. You will be supported by equitable systems, processes, decisions and actions.

Your health and quality of life are important, supported and protected. Our Total Rewards package includes competitive compensation with above-market bonus opportunities, an industry-leading employee stock ownership program and access to the same investment research and planning tools we offer our clients. In addition to our enterprise-wide learning programs, we provide an annual education stipend as well as an industry-leading tuition reimbursement program. Our sabbaticals, where employees receive up to six weeks to refresh and recharge every four years, are available across the globe.