Instructor, UX/UI Design

Job Description

Design Phase 3

Flatiron School powered by Designation seeks a supporting instructor to oversee its advanced design course . The supporting instructors will work directly with the Phase 3-5 Lead Instructor to teach part 3 through 5 of the 5 parts of the program offering. Supporting instructors love teaching, and will inspire with passion, expertise, positivity, and humor. Candidates must help teach students hard skills as well as how to love what they do, how to solve for large, complex problems, and how to get and maintain a growth mindset for their future. The ideal candidate for this position has solid design and communication skills, and can guide along with the Lead Instructor a large group of students with empathy, ensuring their time with the program is a thorough and pleasant experience.

Instructors are mid to senior level designers who show exemplary design, teaching and leadership skills. Their primary duties are to support cohorts across each phase of the program in multiple ways: By overseeing student teams and empowering them to follow and improve on the design process; by providing immediate feedback on student deliverables and resources for further work; by advocating for student needs and overall wellness; and by elevating successes and concerns to staff. Instructors serve multiple roles that overlap:

• Supporting design instructor : Instructors share their knowledge on the implementation of the design process in a sprint setting, assist with daily workshops, and provide educational resources and advice to students in their cohort. Instructors observe design work and presentations in order to provide feedback, and lead formal and impromptu critique sessions when necessary.
• Supporting project manager : Instructors hold student teams accountable to due dates, conduct daily huddles/stand-ups or weekly 1:1s, check-in with teams throughout the day to provide feedback and track progress, and troubleshoot project blockers. Instructors help teach students and teams to self project manage.
• Supporting service designer . Instructors examine the full student experience throughout that part of the program and provide recommendations and actionable plans to staff for continuous improvement.

The breakdown of roles for the instructors will be approximately 75% supporting design instructor, 20% supporting project manager, 5% supporting service designer. This division will shift depending on the needs of the phase, cohort and responsibilities set with the Lead Instruction. Because each cohort is made of a unique set of students that has different needs and goals, instructors must be ready to tailor their approach and activities to each new cohort—this provides opportunities for innovation within the role and growth as a professional.

Instructors carry a number of additional responsibilities, including teaching curriculum modules and workshops, running one-to-one check-ins with all students in the middle of each phase, making sure final deliverables are completed and turned in on time, developing their design portfolios, and engaging with the design community.

Qualifications

• Knowledge in UX, UI, IxD, and visual design.
• 2-4+ years experience in a digital-design related field or program
• Some basic HTML knowledge a plus
• Software knowledge in Sketch, InVision, Photoshop, Axure
• A proven ability to use or quickly learn to use LMS (Learning Management Systems) software, such as Canvas or Learn.
• Can lecture in place of the Lead Instructor as needed.

Background

• You can operate a large team independently
• You take a data-driven approach to business decisions
• You love education and are excited to change education for the better
• You believe in radical candor with your team and our students
• You love having a set of goals and working towards those goals
• You can speak to the design industry at large and are familiar with our student outcomes.

About Flatiron

Flatiron School teaches passionate, creative people how to code. We’ve been teaching since 2012, and now we’re developing software and programs to bring our successful curriculum to more students. We are more than just a school — we are a team of mission-driven individuals trying to align education with reality. Over our five years as a school, we’ve helped over one thousand students learn to code and launch careers in tech. To achieve these outcomes, we’ve never let ourselves stop growing – we’ve constantly iterated on our curriculum, evolved our teaching techniques, and created technology to improve our students’ learning experience.

For the next step in our growth, Flatiron School has joined the WeWork family. In WeWork, we’ve found a partner who shares the mission we’ve had since the beginning: to enable passionate people to learn the skills they need to pursue careers and lives they love. And that mission won’t change. As part of WeWork, we look forward to working together to expand our in-person and online programs and further increase accessibility to our transformative education.

About Flatiron School powered by Designation

Flatiron School powered by Designation is an immersive digital design education program, with over 500 graduates located around the world. Over 24 weeks, both virtual and in-person, participants of all ages and backgrounds continuously enhance their abilities to become purposeful UX and UI designers. Our curriculum combines elements from bootcamp experiences, professional apprenticeships, and higher education to create a singular experience for participants. Because of this combination, we prioritize tools and processes to empower students to take control over their futures and continue learning for decades to come.

*** This role is specific to Phase 3-5 of the design program. If you are interested in teaching the other aspects of the program (Phase 1 or 2 which are online/remote), look for those specific job listings. ***

About Flatiron Program Phase 1 (Remote/Online)

Phase 1 is not only online but a unique phase within the design program experience; as the first phase of the program, it introduces many of the most important skills, tools, and deliverables of the digital design process. While this course is the only part-time part of the course , students in this phase learn the basics of UX research, UX design, interaction design, UI design, and visual design—and how they coalesce into a universally-recognized design process—through a combination of exercises, lectures, and readings. Work is graded, with constructive, actionable feedback given to each student. At the end of the phase, each student proceed with a major or focus be it either UX or UI to follow for the remainder of the program.

About About Flatiron Program Phase 2 (Remote/Online)

Phase 2 is 6-weeks long and after part 1 which provides an introduction to design. The main objective of this phase is for designers to take on a more intense, thorough look at their track of choice (UX or UI) while becoming proficient in industry-standard software and best practices. As intensity begins to ramp up in this phase, designers are required to meet with their assigned instructor each week for regular critique and dialogue in addition to working on a mock project. Both UX and UI tracks feature instructors who work as professional designers and creative directors, and who provide extensive feedback and field questions.

About About Flatiron Program Phase 3

In phase 3, we provide a broad exploratory mock or client project where the parameters are less defined and more open to the opportunities brought by extensive user research and contextual inquiry. Following the template of design thinking, designers are able to fail and learn at a rapid, risk-tolerant pace, while recording and reflecting on the learning that emerges from this personal process. The value of your experience in the position of Lead Instructor is to provide alternate points of view that helps reinforce critical thinking.

AboutAbout Flatiron Program Phase 4

It’s one thing to rapidly learn software, tools, and methods in an immersive setting; it’s another to have the opportunity to put into practice the professional skills needed to manage a successful client engagement. Phase 4 (also known as Client Phase) is where the accumulation of hard and soft skills meet in a real client project.

About Flatiron Program Phase 5

Phase 5 (Career Phase) is the one part of the program that is about communication as well as design. As the final phase of our program, it’s built specifically to give you the tools and confidence—while reinforcing the unique design process you defined earlier in the program—you need to find a job. It requires a shift for every designer: from learning how to be a designer to learning how to tell the story of your growth as a designer by means of a portfolio and a resume.