Hardware Product/Interaction Designer (Hardware Product Design)

Hardware Product/Interaction Designer (Hardware Product Design) 

Term: Full-time, Permanent

Location: High Wycombe

Salary: Negotiable + excellent benefits

Summary 

Focusrite seeks an exceptional Hardware Product / Interaction Designer to join a growing international product design team. 

As a Designer at Focusrite, you will work with cross-functional teams to help conceptualise and deliver outstanding products, services, and experiences. 

Our team focuses on the customer's needs and has a shared passion for understanding and solving the problems they face. We collaborate with our Product Management, Engineering, and Marketing teams to craft beautiful, effortlessly intuitive, and engaging solutions. 

If you want to join a passionate and creative team in an exciting company that is committed to growing and evolving, we would love to hear from you. 

Please note that whilst this role will collaborate closely with Industrial Designers, the focus of this role is on product features, interactions, and interfaces.

About you

You care about why people make and record the content they do, whether it's a podcast, full bands, or entirely in-the-box music. You understand that all people are at a different point in their journey. You are passionate about music and audio and have a good understanding of production and music creation workflows.

You are empathetic and customer focused. You seek to learn from our customers through research and testing, and you have them at the forefront of your mind for each decision you make. 

You are curious about why products, services, and objects have been designed the way they are. You seek to understand the designer's intent and how well the solutions meet the customer's needs. 

You think differently and practice both divergent and convergent thinking at the appropriate points in the design process. 

You enjoy collaborating with multi-disciplined teams and can clearly communicate your ideas through sketches, wireframes, and interactive prototypes, to ensure that stakeholders at all levels understand the design approach. 

You enjoy getting hands-on with making and testing prototypes. You are resourceful and able to think outside the box on ways to prototype an idea effectively.

You can objectively assess your own designs and appreciate the importance of different perspectives and group critique. You're able to facilitate and resolve differing perspectives on design decisions.

You are always looking to improve your skills and working practice to help drive the capabilities of the Product Design Team. 

 What you'll do: 

• Work with the Product Design, Product Management, Engineering & Marketing teams to help conceptualise and deliver to market, outstanding and award-winning hardware products and services 
• Create and execute User Research strategies (both primary and secondary) that yield critical insight and help shape project direction.
• Be an advocate for the end-user, ensuring a deep understanding of users' goals, needs, pain points, behaviours and contexts influences your team’s work.
• Develop User Stories and Use Cases, taking user needs and converting them to product requirements.
• Design/Ideate both collaboratively and individually. You'll lead team design activities.
• Develop wireframes & interactive prototypes. 
• Regularly perform User Experience testing to refine the design. 
• Present your work to your team and project stakeholders.
• Work with the team to measure the impact of designs on customers and business goals.    

Abilities and Experience: 

• Must be passionate about great design & user experiences.
• 3+ years' experience within Hardware Product/Interaction Design, with a portfolio that clearly demonstrates your skills and process. 
• Able to consider and design for complex user needs and interactions between hardware and software.
• A degree or relevant qualification in Product Design, User Experience, User Research, Human-Computer Interaction, Visual Design, or a related field 
• Strong knowledge of music-making tools, products, and processes.
• Ability to lead a multi-disciplined team through a design process and deliver successful outcomes.
• Have a growth mindset.  
• Self-motivated, adventurous, driven, and ambitious 

I don’t have all the experience you’ve asked for, should I still apply?

Our priority is to find the right fit for the team, and for Focusrite/Novation, and we’ll always do what we can to support individual development.  In other words, if you don’t quite have all the experience listed above, we’d still be interested in hearing from you.  Let us know what you’d bring to the role, and why you’d be a great fit for the team.

About Us

Focusrite plc is a global music and audio group that develops and markets music technology products. Used by audio professionals and amateur musicians alike, our solutions facilitate the high-quality production of recorded and live sound. Our audio technology brands stand together, seeking to enrich lives through music by removing barriers to creativity – ‘we make music easy to make’.

The Focusrite Group trades under nine established and rapidly growing brands: Focusrite, Focusrite Pro, Novation, ADAM Audio, Sequential, Martin Audio, Optimal Audio, Ampify Music and Linea Research. With a high-quality reputation and a rich heritage spanning decades, its brands are category leaders in the music-making industry.

Music technology is an enriching space to work in and we enjoy a Group-wide open-door culture which encourages innovation. This culture, combined with a passion for the inspirational solutions we create, has led to the group winning numerous accolades, including three Queen's Awards for Enterprise, the AIM Company of the Year Award 2021 and regular appearances in 'The Sunday Times 100 Best Small Companies to Work For’.

The Focusrite Group is dedicated to building a great place to work and as an equal opportunity employer we are committed to Diversity and Inclusion. The group mission is to cultivate an equitable culture, internally and externally, where all people feel they are welcome, safe and positively represented, because at Focusrite they truly are. Equally, we recognise the major impact that climate change is having on our world and work every day towards being industry leaders in a carbon neutral future.

Benefits include flexible/hybrid working, company pension, life insurance, private healthcare, employee purchase scheme, group bonus scheme, company music events, offsite company parties and free breakfast/lunch in the canteen. We arrange company training sessions and encourage personal development.