UX Operations Lead : Remote (USA & Canada)

UX Operations Lead

Remote (USA & Canada) | Central Time (CST) working hours

Contract-to-Hire (3 6 months)

About the Role
Client is hiring a UX Operations Lead for a global enterprise SaaS client. You will connect the client's UX disciplines (UX Design, Design Systems, Content and UX Research) with the wider Product organization. Your main job is to set up shared decision routines and operating models so the UX organization works as one team. You will keep improving how the team operates by streamlining workflows, standardizing practices, and using automation and AI for repetitive tasks. The Head of UX and UX Directors remain responsible for people leadership, UX strategy and priorities. You will support them directly and work closely with Product Operations on joint operating models and cross-functional initiatives.

Key Responsibilities

• Rituals and routines: Design and run recurring team rituals, design critiques and decision checkpoints across all UX functions.
• Product partnership: Prepare UX leadership for product strategy and operations reviews, make sure agreed actions get done, and be the day-to-day UX counterpart to Product Operations.
• Vendor management: Own the UX tooling and vendor budget, and manage renewals and procurement with IT, Procurement, Finance and Legal.
• Tooling and ways of working: Consolidate communication channels and documentation, and audit the tools in use, including Figma and AI tools. Pilot new tools against measurable outcomes and build reusable templates.
• Hiring and onboarding: Build the onboarding system, plus reusable templates for job descriptions, interview loops and evaluations that directors fill in for their discipline.
• Research Ops and leveling: Connect Research Ops to the shared team rhythms and facilitate a competency and leveling framework that spans disciplines.
• Communications and reporting: Run the regular executive reporting, communicate UX strategy to the team, and coordinate UX participation in annual cross-functional efforts.
• AI and automation: Find repeatable workflows to automate or hand to AI, pilot them with guardrails, and use operational health metrics to decide what to scale.
• Team culture: Create rituals and engagement moments that build connection and psychological safety across a distributed team.

Required Qualifications

• 10+ years in UX operations, design or research program management, or a comparable operations role supporting multiple director-led teams
• Experience owning a budget and managing vendor relationships end to end
• A track record of building an operating model, cadence or process where little existed before
• Experience preparing executives for high-stakes conversations across the organization and following through on the outcomes

Preferred Qualifications

• Ability to influence without formal authority, facilitate decisions, and build strong relationships across disciplines
• Strong written and verbal communication, adapted for executives, team leads and individual contributors
• Ability to prioritize a broad portfolio and deliver improvements in practical stages
• Experience supporting a multidisciplinary UX organization covering design, research, content and design systems
• Experience partnering with Product Operations on shared planning, workflows or standards
• Experience building hiring and onboarding systems, competency frameworks or research operations
• Working proficiency with Figma, Jira, collaboration and documentation platforms, and budget-tracking tools
• Experience applying AI or automation to operational workflows, with clear guardrails and measurable outcomes
• Experience defining operational metrics and using data to understand capacity, track adoption and improve processes