UX Operations Program Specialist

Role Description

Our team is at the center of a rapidly growing industry. We are the largest, most innovative provider of gaming entertainment in North America. From ESPN BET, iCasino, to lifestyle content through theScore, we deliver the experiences people want, how and where they want them.

We are seeking a process oriented and ambitious program and operations specialist capable of wearing many hats to join our Design Organization supporting both Design & Research Operations. As a UX Operations Specialist/lead, you will play a pivotal role in evolving the ways our design and research teams operate and growing the culture of the UX team. You will enable designers, researchers and product managers by improving workflows, optimizing processes, managing resources, enhancing team performance and scaling our operations.  

This role is remote-friendly and reports directly to the Senior Manager of Research Strategy & Operations.

Key Responsibilities

Note: 1 person will not be expected to own all the responsibilities listed below at one time, through prioritization and communities of practice, the focus of different initiatives will rotate.

UX Operations

• Tools & Vendor Management: Vendor and tooling management for design and mixed-method research tools. Inclusive of onboarding tools through procurement, building training resources and ongoing management.
• UX Programs: Own initiatives end-to-end that address UX operational gaps (People, Process, and Tools), leading internal discovery and crafting solutions to improve our existing UX programs.
• Budget & Scheduling: Assist with budget tracking for design and research activities, ensuring resource allocation aligns with project timelines and company goals.
• Cross functional collaboration: Work closely with cross-functional partners including product designers, researchers, product managers, engineers, and various stakeholders, to continuously evolve the way we work together.

Design Operations (DesignOps)

• Process Optimization: Collaborate with design teams to improve workflows, documentation, playbooks and communication strategies, ensuring design processes are efficient, effective, and aligned with business goals.
• Collaboration & Communication: Help manage design operations logistics, organization of team wide rituals, and performance tracking. Facilitate rituals, design thinking exercises, workshops or presentations that cover complex concepts to technical and non-technical groups.

Research Operations (ResearchOps)

• Process Development & Research Enablement: Assist in developing and maintaining, research processes, templates, and documentation to ensure consistent, high-quality outputs from research planning, participant recruitment, scheduling, data management and incentives. Including quality assurance support for research studies.
• Panel Management & Insights Repository: Support management of internal research panel, ensuring healthy and robust database. Support the building and maintenance of our research repository, including input in optimizing our mechanisms for sharing research and conducting research with other teams, in order to create a comprehensive source of insights.
• Compliance & Ethics: Build and consult on research best practices ensuring our documentation and processes comply with ethical standards, privacy regulations, and company policies staying up to date on gaming industry & company PII-protections and liaising with our gaming license internal partners.
• Research Advocacy: Support in educating stakeholders on the value of user research, support democratization and continuous discovery initiatives.

Qualifications

• 2-4 years of experience in design operations, research operations, program management or a related role. Background in design, UX research, or project management is a plus.
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience in Design, Human-Computer Interaction, Psychology, Business Administration, or a related field.
• Basic understanding of user experience (UX) principles and research methods.
• Familiarity with design, research and collaboration tools (e.g., Figma, Loom, Qualtrics, UserTesting, Great Question, Playbook UX, Jira/Confluence, MS365).
• Knowledge of and appreciation for the Product Design Lifecycle; Design and Research lifecycle, you can speak our team’s language with ease.
• Comfortable with fast-paced work environment and managing responsibilities for multiple projects at any given time

Skills

• You are; detail oriented, highly organized, proactive, curious, comfortable working autonomously and empathetic
• Strong problem-solving and critical thinking skills
• Excellent written, verbal, interpersonal and communication skills.
• Exceptional project management and organizational skills.
• Experience with process improvement, resource management, and workflow optimization. 

Nice-to-Haves

• Varied background and transferable experiences
• Familiarity with research ethics and best practices participant recruitment, email marketing, CRM management and other related fields
• Comfortable leading workshops in tools such as Figjam (a plus if you are comfortable in Figma as well!)
• Knowledge of agile methodologies or product development processes.
• Familiarity with data analysis or visualization tools (e.g., Google Analytics, Tableau), design and prototyping tools and technologies is a plus

What We Offer

• Competitive compensation package
• Fun, relaxed work environment
• Education and conference reimbursements.
• Parental leave top up
• Opportunities for career progression and mentoring others

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