Design Director (Tokyo)

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Job Description:

This role is based out of Moon’s Tokyo studio, Spring Terrace, in Omotesando.

As a Design Director at Moon, you will join a global design community that engages with Moon entrepreneurs focused on building new ventures. Our design community is diverse and represents many facets of design including Product Design, UX/UI, Communication Design, Design Research, and Industrial Design among others.

You’ll thrive in a fast-paced, creative, and multicultural environment. You'll be driven by your curiosity, and not afraid to ask the hard questions. You strive to understand why, and perhaps most of all, embrace ambiguity.

We are looking for an exceptional Design Director who is motivated by inspiring others, who leads by example, and who loves the challenge of orchestrating and motivating a diverse team toward impactful results. At Moon, you’ll have the opportunity to discover and serve unmet user needs by applying your expertise in building products and services to address real-world problems.

In this role, you will utilize your craft expertise to inspire entrepreneurs, designers, and researchers, provide guidance, and drive impact while simultaneously acquiring new skills. You’ll help build, develop, and play a meaningful role in leading the design team across Moon's Silicon Valley and Tokyo studios, all in service of creating change through the design of scalable, sustainable solutions that are human-centered and new to the world.

Responsibilities:

Providing Design Direction + Being Hands-On
You will help entrepreneurs, researchers, and designers see alternative ways to think about a design problem and lead them through hurdles and moments where they are stuck. You accomplish this by being hands-on and creating tools, processes, and systems that produce transparency, alignment, and direction. You’re also not afraid to get your hands dirty and are capable of doing the work side by side to help others.

Collaborating closely with Design, Product, and Engineering
You will work closely with the leadership team to ensure an enjoyable user experience across all products, constantly sharing ideas and learnings. You will also partner with product, engineering, design, and venture heads to ensure projects are well-defined, impactful, and successfully executed in both our Tokyo and Silicon Valley studio locations.

Growing the Design Craft and Discipline
You will be able to leverage your UX expertise and perspective to inspire others and help build and grow a global high performing design team that spans Silicon Valley and Tokyo.

Qualifications:

• 8-10 years of professional UX experience in-house, ideally at startup companies


• Speaks Japanese and English fluently


• Ability to inspire and guide teams through craft expertise and lead with empathy


• Highly collaborative and flexible, with the ability to stretch across skill sets and roles dynamically to bridge different parts of the business


• Experience collaborating with teams of designers, researchers, product managers, and engineers


• Experience defining roadmaps and ensuring achievement of milestones throughout


• Experience leading and coaching teams through the product design and development process, and through at least one product launch to market


• Ability and passion for growing, mentoring, nurturing, and leading a global team of researchers and designers through the design process- from ideation to production design while building and evolving new ventures


• Strategic approach and high-level thinking when achieving organizational goals


• Ability to jump into leading and even executing various parts of the UX design process


• Ability to translate research insights into actionable design solutions and guide teams through the synthesis and ideation process


• Ability to be hands-on and proactive in building, prototyping, and evolving digital products


• Experience designing beautiful user interfaces influenced by a point of view on what great design looks like, leveraging tools such as Sketch or Figma


• Strong communication and storytelling skills, using various mediums and formats


• Ability to thrive in an ambiguous and rapidly changing environment


• Experience working with distributed teams across multiple time zones


• Ability to travel for business, especially between Moon offices (Silicon Valley and Tokyo). Travel is estimated at 10-20%

About Moon Creative Lab:

Moon Creative Lab is a human-centered venture studio that powers the creation of new businesses. Moon’s mission is to help Mitsui & Co, one of Japan’s largest organizations, in its pursuit to become a more future-forward, entrepreneurial company. We work to unlock the creativity of Mitsui’s 45,000-strong global workforce to build innovative businesses that will have an exponential impact on the world. We do this by bringing together the best talent in design, engineering, product, and more to create bold new ventures from zero to launch.

Moon transforms ideas into bold new ventures and provides the resources and expertise to light the way to a more creative future. We are human-centered in our approach and hands-on in our delivery. Our team of talented designers, engineers, product leaders, and marketers help our idea owners connect with real users to create prototypes and MVPs and bring them to market quickly. At Moon, you will:

• Address real human needs that have far-reaching social impact


• Work across disciplines, industries, and cultures 


• Start with people and leverage the beauty and messiness of human-centered design

Moon is looking for people who are passionate about unlocking the innate creativity of others while designing impactful businesses. Come join us!