At Upstate Interactive the Design Technologist has a role whose results are front-and-center of our product development process.
The Design Technologist is responsible for developing the stateless components of the application, which are interactive in response to the user’s interactions and responsive to data that is flowing in and out of them. The management of component and layout styles using a design system, usually written in SASS at Upstate Interactive, fall under the responsibility of the Design Technologist as well.
The role complements two other roles in a typical project, a server-side developer and a client-side developer. The interaction with the client-side developer will occur at the boundary of the inputs and outputs of the components that the Design Technologist is creating and there will be collaboration to determine the best shape of the data and the necessary inputs and outputs to provide to stateful components like pages and containers. The interaction with the server-side developer will primarily focus on the data models that are core to the application. There will be collaboration among the whole team to ensure that there are the appropriate columns in the database and keys on the JSON responses.
The Design Technologist communicates with the Product Owner, we use agile scrum for our clients, as a developer on the team to prepare demonstrations, to rapidly prototype interaction patterns and implement branding elements of the application. The role is not, strictly speaking, focused on User Testing, it does come up frequently as a part of the natural course of business.
The typical day for a Design Technologist involves creating designs that are written in code, primarily, and working with static design tools only as necessary. There is much time spent on shaping the feel of the application by regularly refining the inputs and controls and data presentation directly in the browser or device. “Web Design is Design in The Web”is the guiding philosophy.
This role is essential at Upstate Interactive. This is a role that values style. Success in this role is measured qualitatively by user feedback or client feedback and quantitatively by User Stories completed. Beyond everything else, this role that is successfully embodied when anyone watching can see the application coming alive day-by-day as a result of constant demonstrable interactions.
WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR:
- Proficiency with HTML, CSS and JavaScript
- Extensive experience with component-based frameworks like React, Vue, and Angular
- Initiative in delivering concepts and prototypes fast
- 3 - 5 years of experience with web and mobile UI/UX design
- Passionate about accessibility standards and usability heuristics
NICE TO HAVE:
- Proficiency in SASS
- Proficiency in Sketch, Photoshop, InDesign, Pixelmator, etc…
- Print and Graphic design fundamentals
- Typography
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