Product Designer (Contract)

Product Designer (Contract)

Nex is on a mission to help families rediscover the joy of movement. Created by parents for parents, Nex combines technology and play to deliver fun, social, and interactive experiences powered by natural body motion, encouraging kids and adults to move more, play more, and have fun together. Nex Playground, the company's award-winning active play system, is purpose-built to get families moving year-round, with safety and privacy as core considerations in its intentional design. It is certified kidSAFE+ COPPA compliant and built to support healthy, active play for all ages and abilities.

Nex Playground features a growing library of 50+ experiences, including motion and dance games, fitness and educational experiences, and Nex Originals. Content includes collaborations with partners like Hasbro, Sesame Workshop, and NBCUniversal. Nex has been recognized by Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies, TIME's Best Inventions, and Parents' Best Entertainment System for Families, and has earned Red Dot, IDEA, and Core77 international design awards. We encourage you to explore Have Fun and Is Motion Gaming Back?, as they offer a deeper look into our culture, values, and explain how our approach to motion gaming differs from previous generations.

To protect yourself from recruitment scams, please note that Nex communicates through official company emails ending in @nex.inc. If you receive a suspicious email or message, please do not respond and report it immediately to us.

Location: Remote (US) or San Jose, CA Annual Salary: USD 125,000 - USD 175,000 Type: 3 month contract with potential for FTE conversion Reports to: Director of Product Design

The Role

We are looking for a talented and motivated Product Designer to own the design and user experience (UX) of Playground. This role will be critical in creating an engaging, family-friendly interface that enhances how users interact with Playground. You will collaborate closely with our product and engineering teams to design and iterate on experiences that support our mission to connect families through fun and physical activity. Using first principles thinking, you'll be tirelessly seeking opportunities to improve the first-time user experience, the core browsing experience, and other features intended to engage and retain users.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the design process for the OS, focusing on user needs, usability, and delightful interactions for both kids and adults.
• Design and prototype the UI/UX for our custom Android-based operating system, including navigation, settings, and play modes.
• Design user-friendly web-based features that allow users to manage their Playground account off-device
• Work closely with product leaders, engineers, and marketers to understand requirements, align on objectives, and deliver innovative design solutions.
• Create wireframes, prototypes, and high-fidelity designs for new features. Collaborate with engineering to refine designs based on feedback and testing.
• Work to build more consistent practice around team-wide customer empathy by participating in and leading research and testing
• Conduct user research and usability testing to validate design decisions, identify pain points, and iterate on solutions.
• Help build and maintain a consistent design language and design system for both the OS and web platforms.
• Conduct regular audits and usability testing to ensure the design system meets user needs and maintains a high level of quality.
• Advocate for the value and importance of a design system to stakeholders across the company.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Design, Human-Computer Interaction, or a related field.
• 8+ years of experience in product design, UI/UX design, or a similar role.
• Experience with software development and the processes and practices associated with it.
• Strong portfolio demonstrating experience in interaction design, visual design, and user experience, with a focus on consumer-facing digital products.
• An eye for high-quality, well-crafted visual and interaction design.
• Proficiency with design and prototyping tools such as Figma, Sketch or similar.
• Strong leadership and communication skills, with the ability to articulate design decisions and advocate for user-centered design.
• Ability to balance multiple projects and priorities in a fast-paced, dynamic environment.
• A knack for figuring out ambiguous problems and shaping them into clear goals.
• Passion for creating engaging experiences for families, children, and friends.

Nice To Have

• Experience designing operating systems, or 10-foot UI experiences.
• Experience conducting user research and usability testing.
• Familiarity with designing for entertainment experiences with a library of content that is curated and editorialized.
• Knowledge of design systems and creating reusable design components.

Nex is located in San Jose, California, USA and Hong Kong. Learn more about us at nex.inc/who-we-are. We encourage applications even if you don't meet more than 50% of the requirements — we believe that experience comes in many forms!

Nex is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, gender identity, and sexual orientation), national origin, ancestry, age, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. This policy applies to all individuals at every stage of the employment relationship, including all current and prospective employees, and covers all employment decisions including recruitment, hiring, job assignment, promotion, compensation, benefits, training, discipline and termination.

We are committed to providing a workplace free from discrimination and harassment and to fostering an inclusive environment for all employees.