Lead Product Designer

Job Description

LendingHome is a real estate tech company. We won our leadership position in the hearts and minds of our customers by leveraging technology and data to solve their financing needs, and are now building on that success to offer them additional services to help them build and grow their businesses.

Why LendingHome

With our built-from-scratch technology that covers every stage of the loan process, LendingHome has opened access and simplified a way for real estate investors—both novice and experienced—to get financing, generate wealth, and build businesses. Since founded in 2013, we have funded over $7 billion dollars worth of loans across about 32,000+ projects, becoming the nation's largest hard money lender. Combining the best technology and the most knowledgeable people, LendingHome has grown to a team of over 300 and has won many awards over the years including Forbes Fintech 50, Finovate Awards: Best Digital Mortgage Platform, Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies, and many more. LendingHome is uniquely positioned to become the next great financial services brand powered by the most advanced mortgage platform in the world.

• Loans funded: More than $7 billion
• Market Share: Increased from ~2.5% in Q1 2020 to over 5.5% in Q3 2020
• Financial Impact: Since April 2020, LendingHome has been profitable every month, a rarity for a fast growing fintech company.
• Geography: Lending in 28 states, which account for more than 80% of the nation's real estate market
• Homes financed: About 32,000
• Principal and interest returned to investors: More than $5.18 billion
• Employees: About 320 employees, scaling to 400 in 2021

This is a position that can be based anywhere in the United States, remote or in-office. Our hybrid distributed workforce philosophy allows us to find the best talent in the country and build diverse teams, while allowing our teammates to work from the location that works best for them, whether that is their home office or one of our office locations. We have offices in San Francisco, CA and Pittsburgh, PA for those of you that live local and want to work from the office. We also plan to use these spaces to bring together teammates and drive creativity and innovation.

The Role

We are seeking a Lead Product Designer to serve as a player-coach as we grow our product design team. Candidates should bring a practical, yet strategic mindset with the flexibility to context switch from leader to hands-on collaborator as needed. The Lead Product Designer will develop easy-to-use, delightful mortgage workflows and customer-facing products in the real estate domain. The Lead Product Designer’s partnership includes deep cross-functional relationships with Marketing, Product Management, Engineering, Mortgage Operations, Sales, and Capital Markets. Our audience includes consumers as well as internal professional users.

The Lead Product Designer candidate will be a passionate simplifier, steeped in observation and listening skills. Top candidates will bring a mix of interaction and visual design skills born from understanding of user behavior, data, best practices, research experience, and empathy.

Responsibilities

Leadership

• Lead and manage LendingHome’s small, yet talented product design team, helping to scale the team and growing in your career as LendingHome grows as a company.
• Develop and maintain strong partnerships with leaders in Product Management, Engineering, Data, Marketing, and Business Stakeholders. Earn trust with technical credibility, pragmatic decision making, and strong follow through.

Collaboration

• Work closely with Product Managers to make and articulate decisions based on qualitative/quantitative research data, metrics, design principles, customer engagement data and other objective information.
• Participate in all phases of the product development lifecycle, including product ideation and definition, user research, identifying deliverables, estimating effort, design, usability testing, post-launch evaluation, and stakeholder communication.
• Creatively solve complex customer problems and enable high velocity decision making, helping to drive prioritization and UX strategy.
• Collaborate with visual design counterparts in our Marketing team to ensure consistency of brand, color, font, and tone throughout the LendingHome customer experience.
• Communicate interaction design concepts clearly and persuasively across different audiences and varying levels in the organization.

Research & Design

• Conduct qualitative user research to understand customer behavior.
• Create designs that bring together simple workflows, data, customer feedback, user research, and technical considerations.
• Use all of the tools in your UX toolkit to effectively conceptualize new product initiatives. These could include (but are not limited to) personas, journey maps, wireframes, design patterns, mockups, and prototypes.
• Understand the goals, motivations, and behaviors of our customers and relentlessly advocate on their behalf.
• Simplify and distill complex processes into intuitive experiences.
• Have a testing mindset. Iterate quickly, gain learnings, and leverage those into future designs.
• Build out component design libraries, design systems, and style guides that designers and others in the organization can use for reference as we grow our products and teams.

Requirements

• 7+ years experience leading software product design projects.
• 2+ years experience managing teams including: hiring and developing talent; developing processes and tools to ensure design quality; measuring success in terms of human and business impact.
• Degree in Interaction Design, HCI, or related field of study (or work experience in lieu of degree)
• Experience building and understanding the details of user experiences that deal in complex areas spanning quantitative subject matter (Examples: mathematical formulas, financial calculators) and complicated qualitative subject matter (Examples: user management, legal, marketing, internal operations).
• Expertise in tools common to modern Visual and UX Design work: Figma, Sketch, Adobe Creative Suite, Balsamiq.
• 2+ years experience managing teams including: hiring and developing talent; developing processes and tools to ensure design quality; measuring success in terms of human and business impact.
• Has a deep understanding of design research, user experience design process and methodology, its value and how to integrate it into the development process. Has a knack for simplifying and solving complex problems for internal and external users.
• An understanding of interactivity and the fundamentals of information architecture, hierarchy, and layout as well as deep knowledge of usability principles and techniques.
• Strong portfolio with engaging product design examples demonstrating a passion for design and alignment of customer needs to business goals.
• You listen well and have excellent speaking and writing skills. You can observe, analyze, question, and conceptualize. You can articulate your decisions and design process. You are respectful when challenging assumptions and give and receive feedback with equal grace. You are reliable. You estimate work, commit, and deliver on deadlines and are vocal when risk arises.
• Preferred Qualification: Some understanding of front-end development, especially client-side (HTML, CSS, JavaScript); Experience with quantitative tools such as A/B testing and behavior-driven development tools such as Example Mapping.

LendingHome in the News

• Forbes: The Future Of Real Estate: Fintech 50 2019
• Mortgage Professional America: LendingHome surpasses $5 billion in loans in five years
• San Francisco Business Times: S.F. fintech aggressively expands into lending for rental houses
• Curbed: How Wall Street, Silicon Valley Institutionalized Home Flipping
• Officelovin’: A Tour of LendingHome's New San Francisco Headquarters

Benefits and Perks

• Career Growth: We foster an environment that encourages opportunities to use your voice, make an impact, and move towards your long-term goals.
• Lunch & Snacks: Hungry? We have you covered! Enjoy catered lunches and Bagel Wednesdays—and don't forget to take your pick of healthy snacks and drinks daily from our fully stocked kitchen.
• Work-life Balance: With our flexible time off policy, you can enjoy a well-rounded lifestyle while easily balancing work, travel, loved ones, and passions.
• Family Matters: We know your role here might not be the only one you have. Enjoy your job as a parent and welcoming your new bundle of joy with our competitive parental leave policy.
• Commuter Benefits: Travel from A to B without the stress. We help you save money on your commute to work with pre-tax deductions and a monthly stipend.
• Product Ownership: We recognize your hand in making our business great. With offered equity, you can claim your stake in our growth.
• Health Insurance: Your well-being is important to us. Our comprehensive medical, dental, and vision plans ensure that your mind and body are in good keeping.

LendingHome is an Equal Opportunity Employer

Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.
San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance Police Code, Article 49