Senior Designer

About the Role:

Morningstar is looking for a senior designer to help lead user experience design within a cross-functional team developing software for financial advisors and financial professionals. We’re looking for a designer who loves the challenge of turning complex data into great communication design, translating usage patterns into intuitive interactions and workflows, and working in an incredibly collaborative environment. In this role, you will work with experience designers, software developers, project managers, product managers, and business owners to develop the next generation of our software and help lead the critical evaluation and continuous improvement of existing applications.

This position is based in our Chicago office. We follow a hybrid policy of 3 days onsite and 2 days remote work.

You’ll be great at:

• Understanding at an expert level how to provide solutions for complex navigation and information hierarchy challenges at a system level while also supporting a strong user-facing experience. 
• Visualizing and communicating a user’s task flow through various parts of a product and system.  
• Utilizing user-centered design methods (such as user research, prototyping, and other design thinking) in day-to-day work to inform design decisions. 
• Creating wireframes, low-fidelity prototypes, task flows, and other artifacts to visualize and communicate design direction.  
• Partnering with the product owners and engineering leads to support the end-to-end vision of the product. 
• Coaching your teammates on how to make decisions around information structure, relationships, and strategy.  
• Supporting a collaborative, transparent, and high-performing team environment by leading a positive, results-oriented attitude and culture that’s built on resilience, great communication, and mutual respect.  
• Promoting open discussion of new ideas, tough issues, and contrasting points of view.

You’ll also do things like:

• Collaborate with product owners, engineers, and UX designers on your team to make product decisions. 
• Clearly articulate design decisions and provide guidance to others on how to articulate their own design decisions. 
• Facilitate critiques, workshops, design studios, and other design activities. 
• Demonstrate exceptional stakeholder management skills, including effectively managing expectations and obtaining agreement on key objectives. 
• Apply creativity, logic, and critical thinking in new situations to find the best solution while continuously striving to find better ways of doing things. 
• Provide guidance and mentorship to junior team members. 
• Be curious, resourceful, and have a desire to solve challenging information and communication design problems. 

Basic Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in graphic design or equivalent experience/training in the graphic arts. 
• At least 5 years of experience designing for software, web and/or digital products.  

Preferred Qualifications

• Strong knowledge of Sketch, Invision, Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft Office Suite, and Mac OS X  
• Knowledge of HTML and CSS  

How to apply:  

Please include a portfolio of work you're most proud of, so you can tell stories about your experience and impact. We're interested in your designs and want to understand how you work with a team to solve problems.

If you receive and accept an offer from us, we require that personal and any related investments be disclosed confidentiality to our Compliance team (days vary by region). These investments will be reviewed to ensure they meet Code of Ethics requirements. If any conflicts of interest are identified, then you will be required to liquidate those holdings immediately. In addition, dependent on your department and location of work certain employee accounts must be held with an approved broker (for example all, U.S. employee accounts). If this applies and your account(s) are not with an approved broker, you will be required to move your holdings to an approved broker.

Morningstar’s hybrid work environment gives you the opportunity to work remotely and collaborate in-person each week. While some positions are available as fully remote, we’ve found that we’re at our best when we’re purposely together on a regular basis, typically three days each week. A range of other benefits are also available to enhance flexibility as needs change. No matter where you are, you’ll have tools and resources to engage meaningfully with your global colleagues.