Design Assistant

Who will you be working for?

You will be working directly with the non-profit iDE Ethiopia. Your collaboration will involve:

• Working with the current Senior Designer
• Collaborating with other key team members
• Carrying out all steps and activities of the innovation process in each project

Collaboration with the iDE Innovation Lab

You will also work with the iDE Innovation Lab, which functions as a strategy and innovation consultancy focusing on:

• Water, sanitation & hygiene
• Climate change (clean energy, conservation)
• Agriculture
• Maternal health & nutrition

Over the years, the Lab has worked with a portfolio of international development organizations such as:

• Care International
• Hellen Keller
• USAID
• UNICEF
• World Bank Group
• Plant and Food Research
• Save the Children
• SNV

Our Mission

We are on a mission to drive lasting, impactful change through a market systems approach and human-centered design methodologies. We are looking for a passionate designer and creative thinker to join our multidisciplinary and multicultural team to solve development challenges.

What you will be doing:

Supporting all steps in the innovation process of each project:

• Conducting desk research, expert interviews, and designing research plans required to solve the design problem we want to tackle.
• Conducting ethnographic research in diverse contexts.
• Synthesizing findings and presenting them in digestible and visual ways for the client.
• Coming up with actionable ideas and strategies that are easy to operationalize for the client.
• Engaging with stakeholders, leading and facilitating alignment meetings and strategy workshops.
• Running fun and engaging co-creation/brainstorming workshops in the field and in the office.
• Building and developing prototypes and testing loops that will inform the design of the final solution (strategy, product, digital product, businesses, or services).
• Making confident and timely decisions in order to move the project forward.

Your experience level:

• Someone with at least 3 years of experience working for an international development organization, product design and marketing company, or design firm.
• Background in sociology/anthropology, design, product/industrial design, or business.
• Someone passionate about empathetic design.
• Someone driven by making meaningful solutions to solve complex development problems.
• Experience working across diverse cultural environments, or remote areas.
• Comfortable working with diverse teams and communities in rural areas of Ethiopia, as you will facilitate research and collaborative design approaches.

The type of experience that we are looking for:

• Experience in applying various innovation methodologies to projects (human-centered design, behavior change methodologies, behavioral economics, rapid prototyping, and testing).
• Experience with conducting ethnographic research in diverse contexts.
• Experience in synthesizing large amounts of qualitative data into a digestible and visual story.
• Experience in converting research findings into actionable strategies that are easy to operationalize.
• Visual design or product design skills.
• Experience in developing creative directions and communicating this effectively with a client and team.
• Experience in facilitating offline and online workshops (HCD, co-creations, stakeholder alignments).
• Experience in presenting in front of large audiences.
• Skilled in using Adobe Creative Suite and other design software like Mural.
• Skilled using project management tools like Clickup or Asana.
• High proficiency in English reading, writing, and speaking.

Bonus points if you have:

• A business/marketing background, or experience supporting entrepreneurs.
• Experience in product/service development.
• Experience working on digital solutions (UX Design, ICT tools).

Ideally, we would love to find someone that:

• Is highly professional, responsible, and accountable.
• Is passionate, positive, dynamic, curious, and caring.
• Is an autonomous problem-solver with a mind full of ideas ready to be tested.
• Is driven by a social mission.
• Has cultural sensitivity and respect towards unfamiliar contexts.
• Has a flexible mindset, is agile and adaptive, while considering their capacity, deadlines, and limitations.
• Has excellent time management skills.
• Can embrace uncertainty and manage stress.
• Is able to challenge the status quo to create creative solutions.

Salary and benefit package:

As per the scale of the Organization.

Skills Required:

• Design / Art / Fashion / Media
• Sales / Marketing / Business / Management
• Social / Science / Project / Management / Development