Visual/Graphic Designer – Research, Design, and Innovation - Cambridge, United States - Charles River Analytics

Description

Charles River Analytics creates solutions and technology to tackle the world's most challenging problems. Our team of technological entrepreneurs works together to push at the forefront of human-AI teaming, robotics, smart sensing, and human-centered computing. The resulting research and development help to continuously advance government programs and discover new possibilities in the commercial marketplace. We are a 100% employee-owned company, encouraging participation, innovation, and responsibility from our entire staff. At Charles River, we take great pride in our success in attracting and retaining the most talented and creative problem-solvers in our field. Are you interested in being an Employee Owner at one of Boston's Best Places to Work? If this sounds like you, then we'd love to hear from you

We are looking for a passionate designer with outstanding skills in graphic design, visual communication, and illustration, along with experience in user interface and interaction design. The ideal candidate should be adept at employing their strong foundation of graphical design elements, such as typography, hierarchy, and layout, to develop polished illustrations of interaction concepts and novel information visualizations. The ideal candidate will be able to implement and communicate design decisions and relate them to foundational principles in graphic design, visual communication, human-computer interaction, and usability.

In this role, you will collaborate with small teams of research scientists and software engineers to design novel information representations and innovative user interfaces as part of a user-centered design process. You will employ principled and creative approaches to move from early conceptual research sketches to detailed and mature illustrations of interaction concepts. You will work with our scientists and software engineers throughout the systems engineering process, including determining design requirements, iterating on novel interaction approaches, informing the development of live software systems, and supporting interface evaluation and design refinement. You will capture, and communicate the overall process and results of your work and the team to key stakeholders, clients, and end users through concept illustrations, PowerPoint briefings, dynamic prototypes, and/or short interaction videos.

Responsibilities include understanding requirements and conceptualizing novel information representation methods, user interfaces, and interactive data visualizations while leveraging clean, clear, and balanced graphical elements; illustrating and articulating design ideas using conceptual wireframes, storyboards, high-fidelity mockups, and final graphics; leveraging, developing, and contributing to set of design assets and visual patterns; rapidly iterating through multiple concepts and prototypes; delivering prototypes and communicating functions and requirements to describe interactions; capturing and developing process artifacts; communicating design concepts visually, clearly, and concisely to different audiences (e.g., product teams, customers, and end users); extending, maintaining, and supporting others in using design systems and libraries to empower the overall team. In addition to researching and designing quality concept illustrations, you must be able to present design rationale through written, visual, and verbal means to project teams, stakeholders, users, and clients.

How you'll help us grow

• Research, design, and support the development of novel data visualizations, user interface designs, and interaction approaches
• Develop content and supporting visual artifacts to contribute to proposals, reports, and papers, and present work at briefings and conferences as appropriate
• Interact with customers, users, and subject matter experts to analyze and understand domain challenges and needs within a problem domain
• Able to quickly learn by example, by trial and error, and by searching and reading
• Collaborate with the team to define and respond to requirements, and develop visual concepts to support solving complex problems
• Flexibility in working across a diverse set of projects and timelines
• Independently seek and learn from feedback to grow technical skills and employ new work going forward
• Work with Principal Investigators and project technical leads to identify and apply cutting-edge HCI design methodologies and points of intersection across multiple similar domains
• Work with software engineers to develop envisioned technology solutions

What you'll need

• U.S. Citizenship
• Degree in Graphic Design, Visual Communication, Human-Computer Interaction, Human Factors, Interaction Design, Cognitive Systems Engineering, or a related field (e.g., Computer Science with HCI or Interaction Design focus) or a strong track record conducting user research and developing effective user interfaces
• Ability to create early design concept sketches and wireframes and then mature these into high-fidelity interface mockups with modern design sensibilities
• Ability to create supporting graphical elements such as storyboards, concept-of-operation graphics, and process artifacts
• Ability to define and translate user needs and system features into actionable design requirements and to work with software engineering teams to define the direction of technical solutions
• Excellent graphic design, visual communication, and functional reasoning skills, with superior attention to detail
• Expert knowledge of design and prototyping tools, including Adobe Creative Suite (Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, etc.), as well as experience with Figma
• Strong portfolio showcasing your strong visual aesthetic design sense, along with demonstrating high-quality work in data visualization and/or interface design process and outcomes
• Experience directly interacting with customers, stakeholders, or users to define design requirements and deliver design products
• Ability to flexibly work on a diverse set of projects with different timelines and needs
• Proven experience designing user interfaces
• Independent ability to research and apply leading design trends, data science, visualization, and interaction techniques
• Demonstrated ability to generate clear and grammatical written materials
• Ability to be onsite 3x days per week (60% onsite / 40% remote) in Cambridge, MA

Not required but we'd love to see

• Experience with Agile or Scrum development processes
• Experience performing literature reviews and using the results to recommend system improvements or enhancements
• Experience working on Government research and development contracts
• Proven ability to generate inputs to proposals, publications, or similar written materials
• 2+ years of hands-on experience creating and evaluating novel user experiences
• Military Service or DoD work experience
• Experience documenting your design process and products for technical and scientific presentations
• Experience in multimodal interfaces, autonomous systems, human-robot interaction, or human/AI teaming (including Generative AI), and designing for augmented-, mixed-, and virtual reality (AR, MR, and VR) interfaces

Why Charles River?

Charles River Analytics is a 100% employee-owned company that thrives on collaboration and values each employee-owner. We offer competitive compensation plus bonuses, profit-sharing, and an attractive benefits package. Our benefits include 100% employer-paid medical and dental insurance as well as vision, life, and disability insurance; paid maternity/paternity leave; tuition reimbursement; monthly gym allowance; free parking; generous paid time off; and a casual environment. We are also accessible by public transportation. We offer a hybrid onsite/remote (60/40) schedule with tremendous flexibility. At Charles River, we truly value work-life balance.