Design Director, Mixed Reality

Employer

Job Description

We are part of the Microsoft Mixed Reality Experiences Team, where we build amazing next generation experiences that blend the physical and digital world, to unlock the next evolution in human computer and environment interaction, unlocking what before was restricted to only our imaginations.

As a Design Director in the Mixed Reality Experiences team, you will create immersive, collaborative experiences that will enable leading creators, brands, and enterprises to build virtual worlds and events that drive fan, customer, and employee engagement, bridging the real world and the metaverse. These experiences will empower users to seamlessly transition between the physical and the digital world in a natural way, leveraging storytelling, human centered design and user experience methodologies, to empower every person and organization on the planet to achieve more together.

You are drawn to working on the latest and most innovative products in the world. You seek projects that will transform how people interact with technology. You have a drive to grow your skillset by finding unique challenges that have yet to be solved. This is an opportunity to be an innovator!

Our team is comprised of people from a wide variety of backgrounds, identities, previous work histories, and life experiences, and we strive to maintain and grow that diversity. We are a fun, creative, and diverse team that celebrates and embraces our differences, and we’d love to get to know YOU!

Responsibilities
  • Lead our virtual event experience design from vision to implementation through a cohesive and inclusive creative process with key stakeholders across multiple teams and disciplines.
  • Advocate for design principles and bring stakeholders along on the creative journey. Utilize team feedback, data analysis, and user research feedback into clear actionable items to improve features and design processes.
  • Understand consumer and enterprise scenarios to deliver a holistic approach for our Mixed Reality events platform, to enable the next level of social interaction and engagement between presenters, artists, audiences and creators.
  • Approach the role with a test, learn, optimize mindset, driving key learnings back into the product, continuously evolving over time.
  • Seek opportunities to build upon greenfield technologies to deliver novel experiences to users.
  • Build and maintain strong relationships within Mixed Reality and with cross-Microsoft partners to help identify opportunities and deliver amazing content-based experiences.
  • Collaborate with customer and partner teams to communicate our vision, strategy and promise.
  • Partner with early customers on the co-creation and development of experiences.
  • Partner with industry-leading Engineers, Artists, and Producers to drive the design and development of high-quality experiences that meet user needs and business goals.
Leadership Expectations
  • Model and cultivate a growth mindset culture based on the Microsoft leadership principles: create clarity, generate energy, deliver success.
  • Effectively manage in a complex, ambiguous, and deadline-driven environment while maintaining a focus on high quality user experiences.
  • Lead our multi-discipline design team through transformations while building capabilities for the future.
  • Advocate for inclusion and diversity, while demonstrating strong empathy and self-awareness.
Qualifications

Required Qualifications:
  • 10+ years’ industry experience in a Creative or Design Director role, preferably in game design or related field.
  • 5+ years' experience shipping high quality, real-time 3D or immersive games/applications, including systems and UX design, working with the latest content creation and game engine tools.
  • 5+ years' experience managing and leading people; specifically coaching, developing and retaining great talent.
  • Proven track record of collaboration, influencing results, and communicating with executive audiences.
  • Demonstrated ability to think strategically, problem solve, execute effectively, and manage multiple projects at once.
Preferred Qualifications
  • Experience in digital storytelling and event production, including experience with video production and/or event marketing.
  • Experience working in virtual or augmented reality a bonus.
Ability to meet Microsoft, customer and/or government security screening requirements are required for this role. These requirements include but are not limited to the following specialized security screenings:  Microsoft Cloud Background Check: This position will be required to pass the Microsoft Cloud Background Check upon hire/transfer and every two years thereafter.  



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Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application or the recruiting process, please send a request via the Accommodation request form.

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