Interaction Designer
The Company
Carbonite delivers easy-to-use, affordable online backup services for consumers and small business worldwide. During the past three years Carbonite has acquired nearly half a million customers in over 100 countries through direct marketing and channel partners including major PC manufacturers, retailers / e-tailers, ISPs and other software companies. Carbonite's vision is one in which its products are available everywhere and become the choice for PC and Mac users worldwide.
Founded in 2005, Carbonite employs 97 people at its Boston headquarters (across the street from the Public Garden). Our founders have worked together to build multiple, successful New England technology companies.
Our substantial revenue and subscriber growth (which has accelerated in the last two quarters in spite of global economic conditions) is the result of having effectively addressed an important need in a large market through proprietary technology, a compelling customer experience and effective execution. We have ambitious goals and are passionate about making Carbonite a major success story. Attracting and retaining the right talent will be critical to meeting these objectives.
The Engineering Team
Carbonite employs a top-notch team of experienced engineers. We enjoy working together as a team and pride ourselves on delivering high quality products that delight our customers and meet the ever-changing needs of our business.
We are results-oriented and enjoy working in a fast-paced business in which our success can be measured on a daily basis by subscriber acquisition and retention. We truly enjoy what we're doing, try to have fun while doing it, and are careful to make sure that the team works at a sustainable pace.
In spite of our rapid growth, we've been able to retain an entrepreneurial outlook and attitude. There are many areas of opportunity in which new team members can have significant impact on the business. We need very smart, energetic and driven people to help us continue to build what promises to be a great company and brand. If Carbonite sounds like an environment you'd like to work in, and you're smart, driven, and can get things done, we hope you'll join us!
The Position
The Interaction Designer will join the Engineering organization and function as a rotating member of the product development team. S/he will work closely with both Product Management and Engineering to create user-testable prototypes. The Interaction Designer will produce initial designs and testable prototypes, perform usability tests, serve as our resident design expert, and help teach others in the organization about UX best practices.
Your Primary Objectives
First 3 months
- Come up to speed quickly on all of Carbonite's products and become an expert on the user experience for each
- Understand the existing strategic vision, product roadmap and usability-related projects underway
- Develop initial designs, wireframes and testable prototypes based on user and business requirements for 1-2 projects
- Consult on specific usability challenges, provide design guidance, and run usability tests on solutions.
4 to 12 plus months
- Provide tangible design improvements in new products and our existing product line, by developing their user interface and measuring success in the field.
- Identify critical usability considerations for our major product offerings and web interfaces, recommend significant design improvements, and work closely with the team to bring the improvements to market.
- Gauge the ease of use of interfaces and how well interfaces meet business goals
- Perform heuristic usability reviews
- Assist with usability testing
- Make prioritization recommendations for suggested UX improvements
- Work with graphic designers, front-end and back-end developers to identify and implement UX improvements
Key Challenges You Will Overcome
- Coming up to speed rapidly on products' user experience and development process
- Integrating your work seamlessly into our Agile development cycles
- Helping to foster a user-centric design culture at Carbonite
- Balancing UI improvements with tight development timelines and technical constraints
How Your Success Will Be Measured
- Quality of wireframes and user-testable prototypes
- Ability to create usable designs based on established design principles (usability will be assessed through user testing)
- Ability to work closely with engineering to make changes in the product
- Ability to integrate yourself into the organization and work effectively in a cross-functional team
Desired Skills and Experience
- Master's Degree in Human-Computer Interaction, Cognitive Psychology, Human Factors/Ergonomics or similar discipline or equivalent experience
- Five or more years' experience in usability and user experience design
- Expert in user-centered design principles
- Front-end HTML development skills (HTML / CSS / Javascript /Flash) to facilitate prototyping, not necessarily for production code.
- Graphic design skills a plus
- Experience in user testing
- Experience working in an AGILE development environment a plus
- Demonstrated history of improving user experience
Characteristics that will make you successful at Carbonite
- Passionate about usability and well-versed in its principles, concepts and literature
- Test and data driven
- Very smart, driven, gets things done
- Roll-up-your-sleeves attitude
- Results-oriented
- Detail-oriented
- Works well with different functional groups (w/ Product Management, Engineering, etc.)
- Communicates effectively and appropriately: good news fast, bad news faster
- Highly organized, able to multi-task
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Benefits
Carbonite offers a comprehensive benefits package. We are committed to providing a competitive portfolio of benefits including health, insurance, and retirement, along with work life programs.
Medical Insurance
Carbonite offers a comprehensive health insurance plan to all full-time and eligible part-time employees through BlueCross BlueShield. We offer two plans and generously contribute to the cost of this benefit. Eligibility begins on first day of employment. Premium contributions contributed by the employee are on a pre-tax basis.
Dental Insurance
Carbonite offers dental benefits through Delta Dental. These benefits are available to all full-time and eligible part-time employees effective on your first day of employment. Premium contributions contributed by the employee are on a pre-tax basis.
Life and other Insurance
In addition to health benefits, Carbonite offers all full-time employees Basic Life, AD& D, Short-Term Disability and Long-Term Disability insurance; the company picks up the cost of these benefits.
Flexible Spending Accounts
Carbonite offers a flexible spending account plan. This plan will allows the employee to make pre-tax contributions through payroll deduction into medical and dependent flexible spending accounts.
Commuter Benefits Plan
Carbonite offers a Commuter Benefits Transit & Parking Plan which is a pre-tax commuter benefits plan that is used to pay for monthly bus, ferry, train or metro passes along with qualified expenses for vanpooling in commuter highway vehicles, and parking expense. Expenses must be incurred when commuting between work and an employee's residence.
401(k) Savings Plan
Carbonite has established the Carbonite, Inc. 401(k) Plan with the objectives of providing for employee security upon retirement and encouraging employees to save on a regular basis.
Stock Options
Carbonite is a pre-IPO, privately held company and we believe in sharing in the success of the company with those who help create that success. As part of your overall compensation package, you will be granted a stock option package, subject to board approval.
Paid Time-off (PTO)
Employees start accruing 15 days of PTO from the moment they join Carbonite. For each completed year of service an employee receives an additional day of PTO up to a maximum of 20 days.
Holidays
You will be eligible for ten holidays per calendar year.
Employee Referral Program
All Carbonite employees are eligible to participate in the employee referral program. Referring employee will receive one of the following bonuses after the referred employee has been employed for 90 days.
Referral Bonus Payout
$1,000 for the hiring of a non-exempt employee
$2,000 for the hiring of a full-time exempt employee below a manager
$3,000 for the hiring of a full-time exempt employee that is a manager or director
$5,000 for a VP
Employee Assistance Plan
Carbonite employees and their eligible dependents are eligible to participate in the Employee Assistance Plan (EAP) effective on their date of hire. This plan provides access to a confidential resource for evaluation, counseling, information, and referrals to help solve work and personal issues.
All benefits are subject to change at the discretion of the Company.