Position SummaryThe Design Lead is responsible for leading the Design team while fostering strong communication and collaboration across Design, Development, QA, Support/Deployment teams and product management stakeholders.
The role ensures that business requirements, functional specifications, UX designs, database architecture and supporting documentation are complete, clear, and ready for development. A key responsibility is building effective working relationships across teams, promoting open communication, ensuring a shared understanding of requirements and expectations, and encouraging constructive discussion of issues, risks, and competing priorities.
The Design Lead combines team leadership with hands-on design and business analysis, helping create an environment where information is shared openly, concerns are raised early, and teams work collaboratively toward common product and release objectives.
Key ResponsibilitiesTeam Leadership- Lead and coordinate the Design team, including assigning work based on priorities, expertise, and availability. Provide guidance and constructive feedback while maintaining high standards for quality and accountability.
- Communicate team progress, capacity constraints, risks, and blockers to management.
Communication and Collaboration- Build strong working relationships across functional teams and product management stakeholders.
- Promote clear, timely communication and a shared understanding of requirements, priorities, technical constraints, and expectations.
- Facilitate constructive discussions, address misunderstandings, and encourage early identification of risks and dependencies.
- Ensure decisions and changes are communicated to affected teams.
SDLC and Release Planning- Work closely with the Release Manager to coordinate Design team activities and ensure that release-related deliverables are completed within established timelines.
- Monitor Design deliverables against release timelines, proactively identify potential delays or resource constraints, and communicate risks to relevant stakeholders.
- Participate in release planning and scope reviews, identifying outstanding requirements, dependencies, and risks.
- Support effective handoffs across Design, Development, QA, Support, and Deployment.
Business Analysis and Functional Design- Personally lead and undertake the development of business specifications, functional requirements, and detailed design documentation, ensuring requirements are clearly defined, documented, and ready for development.
- Oversee the team's deliverables: development and completion of thorough business requirements, use cases, workflows, functional specifications, business rules, and acceptance criteria. Ensure requirements are complete, unambiguous, and aligned with business objectives before development begins.
- Ensure the Design team works closely with Development to define and complete technical specifications, clarify system behaviour, identify technical dependencies, and address implementation considerations.
- Facilitate collaboration with Development and QA to ensure requirements are clearly understood, technically feasible, and sufficiently detailed before development begins.
UX Design and Development Readiness- Oversee UX designs, user workflows, mockups, and interface specifications.
- Ensure designs meet usability expectations and provide sufficient detail for development and testing.
- Work with Development and QA to clarify expected behaviour and resolve design-related issues.
- Identify opportunities to improve documentation, processes, and cross-team collaboration.
Qualifications and Competencies- 7+ years demonstrated ability to lead a team of professionals in an IT environment, establish clear expectations, provide constructive feedback, and ensure commitments are met.
- 7+ years of practical experience in business analysis, functional design, UX, or a related software development role.
- Excellent written, verbal, and interpersonal communication skills.
- Strong collaboration and relationship-building skills, including the ability to facilitate discussions and resolve differing perspectives constructively.
- Experience translating business needs into clear requirements, functional specifications, and acceptance criteria.
- Solid understanding of the SDLC, software development processes, and release management.
- Working knowledge of relational databases, data structures, and application integrations.
- Ability to understand technical constraints, identify dependencies, and work effectively with developers and technical specialists.
- Diploma in Business Analysis, Design, Computer Science, or a related field.
- Knowledge of asset integrity management, inspection, or risk-based inspection (RBI) processes in the petroleum or oil and gas industry is an asset.
