Principal Solution Designer

Description

Principal Solution Designer

Company: Hitachi America, Ltd.

Division: R&D/Design Lab

Location: Santa Clara, CA/Remote

Status: Full-Time

Role Overview for job description:

Hitachi America, Ltd. (www.hitachi-america.us) is looking for a Principal Solution Designer to lead solution design activities in a B2B context from our office in Santa Clara, California. Solutions that Hitachi’s design teams provide to their clients (both internal and external) include, but are not limited to, technology supported business transformations that enhances clients’ current and future operations, organizational strategic alignments of stakeholders and conceptual models of new technologies, services, business models, and/or their combination, required to achieve such transformation. 

Responsibilities of a Hitachi Solution Designer include, but are not limited to, effectively using design and design research tools and methodology, either in existence or creating new ones to, identify solution opportunities, clarify and define client projects, investigate project and solution requirements with social science researchers, and exploring and documenting project artifacts such as personas, scenarios, stakeholder maps, experience maps, and design concept models.

The successful candidate, as a principal designer, will be enhancing the lab’s solution design capabilities through mentoring other designers (including senior designers), creating and executing exemplary projects showcasing value of design contributions in Hitachi’s business contexts. In addition, the candidate will also drive adoption of design methodologies and tools in innovation practice among regional business units and other R&D labs, by devising appropriate and viable adoption strategies.

While the team is small, the candidate will also be responsible in execution of projects, keeping up with design field trends, iterating upon applying and improving tools and methods for conducting customer-centered projects, and creating plans and executing feasible enhancement efforts.

As a member of the team, the solution designer is expected to integrate well into the interdisciplinary working structure of Hitachi’s R&D.

Responsibilities:

• Revise and enhance Hitachi’s innovation framework by further integrating design in actionable and effective manner.
• Create and execute on strategy for design adoption in innovation practice by business units and other R&D labs.
• Take initiatives in planning, executing and managing the enhancement of Hitachi’s design capabilities, and visibility in the field.
• Identify opportunities and create novel tools and methodology for strategic and effective use of design capability within Hitachi’s business context.
• Work with managers to propose projects and secure internal and/or external funding for expansion of the design capability and adoption of Hitachi.
• Work with managers to establish world-class design organization through mentoring other designers (including senior designers) and/or effective recruiting strategy securing appropriate funding.
• Execute projects as a solution designer. Tasks may include but are not limited to the following:
  • Create narrative and artifacts and plan and facilitate workshops for futures thinking/speculative design, from a societal level to each customer context.
  • Identify solution opportunities through discussions and workshops with project stakeholders.
  • Collaborate with social science researchers and conduct research to gather, analyze, and understand the solution contexts and their requirements.
  • Create early prototypes of solution and the entire solution story based on hypotheses about the customer environment with other R&D members.
  • Strategically plan, design and conduct design-led workshops and other activities for appropriate project execution.
  • Explore and evaluate prototyped customer experiences and identify improvements.
  • Actively engage Hitachi researchers, developers and engineers to ensure implementation of great solution experiences for customers.
  • Collaborate with other designers as well as with international, interdisciplinary colleagues.
  • Take initiatives, plan, execute and manage projects and accurately report progress to management and other members, monitoring and mitigating risks and issues.

Requirements:

• Master’s degree or higher in the design field required.

• Minimum of 15 years of professional experience as a designer required.

• At least 7 years of professional experience with systems/business/solution design required.

• Thorough understanding of systems thinking.

• Exposure to and practical experience with futures thinking is a plus.

• Having experience implementing innovation strategy using design in a corporate setting is a huge plus.

• Experience in the fields of healthcare, energy, transportation, mining, construction, IT, telecom, oil & gas, manufacturing, or finance is a plus.

• Experience working with social scientists, or effective use of social science research results in their design work is highly desirable.

• Experience working with a multi-disciplinary project team is essential.

• Understanding of the role of technology in solutions.

• Understanding of societal trends and their implications.

• Experience analyzing user research results and their implications for design.

• A very good understanding of human-centered design and related principles and methodologies is essential.

• A sound awareness of a project’s business requirements and implications as well as an understanding of context-specific constraints.

• Capable of understanding complex and nuanced customer/stakeholder relationships.

• Capable of identifying and clearly defining project requirements and producing compelling deliverables that reflect an understanding of the specific project needs.

• Creativity in solving problems.

• Strong communication skills.

• Excellent storyteller.

• Strong visualization skills.

• Project management skills.

• Ability to travel frequently (25% travel).

Equal Opportunity Employer (EOE)-Females/Minorities/Protected Veterans/Individuals with Disabilities

If you need a reasonable accommodation to apply for a job at Hitachi, please send the nature of request and contact information to [email protected] Queries other than accommodation requests will not be responded to.