Lead UX designer - Immediate Interview

Lead UX Designer - Immediate Interview

Columbus, OH

Long term Contract

Experience: 8–12+ years in UX/Product Design, including 3+ years leading legacy or mainframe application modernization initiatives in the Banking domain.

About the Role

We are seeking a Lead UX Designer to spearhead the transformation of complex, mission-critical mainframe applications into intuitive, scalable, and intelligent digital experiences.

This role goes beyond designing modern interfaces—it requires reimagining decades-old business processes, simplifying highly complex workflows, and enabling organizations to transition from legacy green-screen systems to modern, user-centered applications.

You will partner with Product Managers, Business Analysts, Architects, Engineers, and business stakeholders to define the UX strategy for modernization initiatives while mentoring designers and driving design excellence across multiple workstreams.

The ideal candidate combines strong UX leadership, enterprise design expertise, systems thinking, and a deep understanding of legacy application modernization. Experience designing data-intensive enterprise applications and leveraging AI-enabled capabilities to improve user productivity is highly desirable.

Key Responsibilities

Enterprise Discovery & Legacy Analysis

• Collaborate with Product, Engineering, Architects, and Business stakeholders to understand business objectives, user needs, and modernization goals.
• Analyze legacy applications, including 3270/green-screen interfaces, COBOL/CICS transactions, business rules, workflows, and data models to identify modernization opportunities.
• Conduct user interviews, contextual inquiries, workflow observations, and stakeholder workshops to uncover usability challenges and business pain points.
• Facilitate Design Thinking workshops, journey-mapping sessions, and co-creation activities to align stakeholders on product vision and priorities.
• Translate business and technical requirements into actionable UX strategies and design opportunities.

UX Strategy & Experience Design

• Define UX strategy and experience vision for enterprise modernization programs.
• Create personas, empathy maps, customer journeys, task flows, service blueprints, and information architecture that inform product direction.
• Simplify complex enterprise workflows into intuitive, task-oriented digital experiences.
• Design enterprise dashboards, reporting solutions, analytics, search experiences, workflow management, and decision-support interfaces.
• Identify opportunities to incorporate AI-powered experiences such as intelligent search, workflow automation, recommendations, conversational interfaces, and predictive insights where they provide measurable business value.

UX Design & Prototyping

• Produce wireframes, user flows, interaction models, low- and high-fidelity prototypes, and production-ready UI specifications.
• Design responsive experiences optimized for desktop, tablet, and mobile platforms.
• Collaborate closely with Engineering to ensure accurate implementation of UX designs.
• Develop and maintain interaction standards, reusable patterns, and enterprise design system components.
• Create comprehensive design documentation and implementation guidelines.

Research, Validation & Continuous Improvement

• Plan and conduct usability testing, heuristic evaluations, accessibility reviews, and prototype validation sessions.
• Analyze user feedback, behavioral data, and research findings to continuously improve user experiences.
• Define UX success metrics and leverage analytics to measure product effectiveness and adoption.
• Advocate for evidence-based design decisions throughout the product lifecycle.

Accessibility & Design Quality

• Champion inclusive design and accessibility across all digital products.
• Ensure compliance with WCAG 2.1 AA (or higher) accessibility standards.
• Collaborate with Engineering to validate accessibility implementation and resolve usability issues.
• Establish UX quality standards and conduct design reviews to ensure consistency across modernization initiatives.

Leadership & Collaboration

• Lead end-to-end UX activities across multiple modernization workstreams.
• Mentor and guide UX designers, fostering a culture of collaboration, innovation, and continuous learning.
• Partner with Product Managers, Architects, Engineers, Business Analysts, and QA teams throughout the Agile delivery lifecycle.
• Present design concepts, research findings, and strategic recommendations to executive leadership and key stakeholders.
• Balance user needs, technical feasibility, business objectives, and delivery timelines to drive informed design decisions.
• Promote UX best practices and contribute to the evolution of enterprise design maturity.

Required Skills & Experience

• 8+ years of professional UX/Product Design experience, including hands-on experience modernizing enterprise or legacy applications in the banking industry
• Demonstrated success leading UX initiatives for complex enterprise modernization programs.
• Strong expertise in UX research, Design Thinking, information architecture, interaction design, and usability testing.
• Proven experience designing complex, data-intensive enterprise applications, dashboards, analytics platforms, and workflow management systems.
• Strong understanding of enterprise application architecture, business process analysis, and workflow optimization.
• Experience designing within enterprise design systems and creating reusable UX patterns.
• Proficiency in Figma, FigJam, Sketch, Miro Photoshop, or equivalent design tools.
• Solid understanding of responsive design, accessibility standards (WCAG), and inclusive design principles.
• Experience working within Agile, Scrum, Lean UX, and Dual-Track Agile methodologies.
• Excellent communication, facilitation, and stakeholder management skills with the ability to influence technical and business audiences.
• Demonstrated leadership experience managing designers, coordinating cross-functional teams, and driving successful project delivery.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience modernizing mainframe applications, including COBOL, CICS, IMS, DB2, AS/400, or 3270 environments.
• Experience designing AI-powered enterprise applications, conversational interfaces, workflow automation, or intelligent decision-support systems.
• Familiarity with cloud migration and digital transformation initiatives.
• Experience establishing, scaling, or governing enterprise design systems.
• Knowledge of front-end technologies (HTML, CSS, JavaScript) and component-based UI frameworks.
• Experience working in highly regulated industries such as Financial Services, Healthcare, Insurance, Government, or Manufacturing.