UX Copy Manager (For independent contractors)

UX Copy Managers are competent in the copywriting craft and strong leaders who are deeply committed to the discipline of management and the career development needs of others within the copywriting craft. Their primary focus is on empowering their direct reports to do their best work rather than doing practical copy work as individual contributors. They have a clear grasp of the needs of the business and work to effectively balance them alongside the needs of their direct reports, ensuring a clear understanding of expectations and minimizing surprises.

Key Responsibilities

Management & Leadership

•    Manages a team of employees; including their allocation, performance, progression, owns workability cases.    

• Ensures the development of individuals within the organization.

• Coaches and mentors individual designers to improve craft, deliverables, communication, and career advancement; evaluates and elevates individuals’ process and craft through critique, review, or other measurable steps.    

• Hires new employees - identifies headcount needs for designers aligned to track or business objectives; works with HR and UX Copy leadership in order to recruit and interview candidates for identified roles.   

•  Works with individuals and groups to define clear and measurable day-to-day working goals, aligned with business and stakeholder needs.    

• Helps reports prioritize work on product- and community-focused initiatives and projects; guides the definition of work schedules to capitalize on their reports’ strengths and ensure focus is maintained.   

•  Demonstrates experience managing stakeholders, processes, business priorities and projects, as well as the ability to influence and guide individuals.   

•  Networks across multiple teams, tracks and disciplines to achieve objectives, proactively builds productive relationships across teams.

Craft    

• Acts as a subject matter expert on copywriting and copy and translations systems and tooling, as well as their product area or business topic; understands the right balance between quality and velocity   

•  Advances reports’ understanding and application of user-centered strategy and techniques to enable and advance quality copy outcomes.

•    Encourages and enables their direct reports in facilitating workshops, sprints, critiques, reviews, or other collaborative processes across teams or tracks in order to engage direct reports, peers, and key stakeholders to provide continual direction for copy.  

•   Develops and drives improvement or implementation plans to relevant copy and translation systems and guidelines; Works with design and copy leadership, as well as others to ensure product, craft, quality, and accessibility standards and requirements are applied across their reports’ tracks, teams and products.   

•  Demonstrates awareness of current and upcoming trends in market, technology and UX writing; Shares this knowledge widely and encourages others to learn.

Commercial Awareness & Communication    

• Acts as a consistent advocate for end user needs and perspectives in product area discussions, reviews, and critiques.    

• Guides team members in appropriate ways to validate hypotheses through user-testing, quantitative and qualitative methods.    

• Enables understanding of track or area's business models and strategies amongst their team and the utilization of this in product design strategies.    

• Champions an advanced understanding of Booking’s brand, design and copy standards, systems, and guidelines and their use across the work of their teams.

Level of Education

Bachelor degree

Requirements of special knowledge/skills

• Strong interpersonal skills

•    Strong work ethic; self-directed and resourceful

•    Solution oriented and result driven

•    Proactive, flexible and capable of working independently as well as working in a team

•    1-3 years of successfully managing and/or mentoring writers

•    Over 5+ years directly applicable IC (Individual Contributor) copywriting experience

•    IC UX copy experience within a mass consumer digital environment, such as Marketplaces, SaaS, Media, Travel, Retail, etc. on customer-orientated user experience projects

•    IC UX copy experience working on multilingual sites that use dynamic translation and localisation solutions

•    Documented creative ability to develop ideas, strategies, hierarchies and propositions to engage customers

•    Strong theoretical and practical user-centred skills

•    Experience of working with Tech and Commercial stakeholders, and managing their objectives

•    Experience and knowledge of A/B and multivariate testing processes

• Years of relevant Job Knowledge.Years of relevant Job Knowledge

• Advanced Knowledge (5 - 8 years)

Years of relevant Job Knowledge

1-3 years of successfully managing and/or mentoring copywriters