Design Manager

Who we are: 

Fuse builds innovative communications, networking, and computing solutions that improve the sharing of information, video, text, and voice among operators distributed throughout the airborne, maritime, and ground environments.  We are an R&D firm creating in-house software, network and hardware solutions that support our noble cause of advancing warfighter capabilities with elegant, user-focused communications, networks, and software systems.   

About this role: 

As the Design Manager, you will own and mature the Design Language across products and programs. Leading a team of UX and Industrial designers, your ability to define, implement, and maintain a design system across the company as a whole will have a direct impact to our overall success. You will collaborate with leadership, strategy, marketing, domain experts, and engineers to provide value to the experience. 

Duties and Responsibilities: 

• Drive an end-to-end intuitive user experience across mediums (Web, Mobile, Industrial Design) and disciplines, with a focus on minimizing cognitive overhead of complex concepts 

• Discover and define interaction designs and UI patterns through engagement activities with our warfighter community 

• Lead a UI/UX team to define and deliver interaction design flows, scenarios, and structural layouts for both digital and physical product interactions 

• Lead an Industrial Design team to inform the manufactured design of our physical products 

• Partner with program management, hardware engineers, and industrial engineers to deliver thoughtful solutions for our tangible product lines 

• Bring a multidisciplinary point of view of product design to the conversation, bringing creativity and diversity of thought from a design point of view 

• Ability to self-motivate and consistently deliver results in a rapidly delivering and fast-moving organization 

• 8+ years of experience driving design for an organization 

• Experience in prototyping and turning prototypes into shipped products 

• Experience with Design Thinking processes and user-focused design principles 

• 2+ years of experience in modern UI design software, such as Figma, Sketch, Principal, or Adobe 

• Must have a portfolio or repository indicating interaction and visual design skills with the ability to design quality graphical user interfaces 

• Experience in shipping and designing a web or mobile applications 

• Experience with visual authoring tools used by software developers, mechanical, electrical, industrial, and system engineers 

• Ability to self-motivate and consistently deliver results in a rapidly delivering and fast-moving organization 

• A firm grasp of the concept of servant leadership. Positive attitude and optimistic outlook 

• US Citizen 

• Willingness and Ability to obtain US Secret Clearance. We can answer any questions regarding this process and walk you through the steps when obtaining it 

• Your own unique talents! If you meet some requirements of this position but not 100% of the qualifications outlined above, tell us why you’d be a great fit for this role based on your specific characteristics that align with our values and goals 

Must be a nimble self-starter who is excited about technology and can think out of the box and suggest powerful new ideas.

Nice to have: 

• Current understanding of technology such as web, mobile, and know the constraints, be willing to push the limits and apply creative solutions that result in great user experiences 

• A comfortable command of visual authoring tools used by software developers, mechanical, electrical, industrial or system engineers such as Visual Studio, Solidworks, or others 

• Experience with industrial design and shipping physical products 

• Familiarity with networking, network monitoring and networked systems 

• Experience with physical products for use in rugged environments (aircraft, vehicles, off-grid, camping, etc) 

• Experience with networked Linux systems is a plus 

• Experience working alongside an agile software development team, including use of project management software and integration with scrum, agile etc 

• Prior entrepreneurial experience is a plus 

More about Fuse: 

Founded in 2010, Fuse is a veteran-owned, rapidly growing small business. Our San Diego-based company has earned recognition as an emerging leader in airborne, maritime, and ground networking.  Placing the warfighter at the center of every design process, Fuse delivers intuitive, agile, and resilient products that go beyond national security requirements—providing lasting utility and game-changing results.  We take pride in our brilliant and talented team as well as our dynamic environment and collaborative, creative, environment.  We build cutting-edge hardware and software products that solve complex national security challenges for our warfighters at the tactical edge.  

Salary Range: $120,000 - $175,000

• Medical, Dental, and Vision 

• Employee coverage is fully funded; a portion of dependents' coverage is funded as well 

• 11 paid Federal Holidays 

• Paid Time Off (PTO) 

• Date of hire through second year: 10 days/year (accrued) 

• After two years: unlimited 

• 40 hours of paid sick leave per year 

• 401k with employer matching 

• Annual bonuses 

• Cell phone reimbursement: $100/month