Senior UI / UX Designer

Senior UI / UX Designer Priority Location: Latin America and South Africa Working Hours: 8AM - 4PM (Mon-Fri) EST (New York Hours) Salary Range: USD 4,000 - 5,500 (up to 6,000 per month for highly qualified candidates) Type of contract: Independent Contractor Type of job: Remote About the Company: The company is a fast-growing software company modernizing how colleges and universities manage residential life. We build the systems that power campus housing operations, helping schools handle everything from room assignments and applications to communications, logistics, and the day-to-day student living experience. Our work sits at the intersection of technology, operations, and student success: when our platform works well, institutions run more smoothly and students feel more supported in one of the most important parts of college life—the place they live. For someone outside student housing, the simplest way to think about the company is this: we bring better software, better workflows, and better data to a part of higher education that has long been underserved, with the chance to make a real operational and human impact at scale. Role Overview: The company has grown quickly, and we're at the point where great design can meaningfully shape the next chapter of the company. We're looking for a designer who can elevate and expand our design system, creating a more unified, consistent experience across the platform while making complex workflows feel clear, intuitive, and simple. This person will also lead the design of new products, features, and user flows as we continue to scale. The role combines thoughtful refinement of what exists with a strong forward-looking mandate to define what comes next, including a substantial mission to "AI-fy" the application by designing powerful agentic flows that automate and simplify complex institutional and student journeys. Your work will require a huge focus on platform-wide consistency, exceptional usability, clear navigability, and robust patterns for operational diagnosis. You'll be one of the most important forces in shaping how the company feels to customers: polished, cohesive, and intentionally designed from end to end, with the ownership and autonomy to make a real mark. Key Responsibilities: Conduct a comprehensive UI/UX audit of the existing platform, identifying opportunities to strengthen consistency in typography, spacing, color, component usage, interaction patterns, and information architecture. Define and document a unified design system (component library, style guide, design tokens) that can be applied retroactively and used as the foundation for all future work. Prioritize and execute a phased refinement plan to elevate existing screens to the new design system standard, working closely with engineering to roll out improvements smoothly for live users. Establish consistent design typologies—standardized patterns for forms, data tables, dashboards, modals, navigation, empty states, error handling, and diagnostic feedback—so every surface of the product speaks the same visual and interaction language, enhancing navigability and overall usability. Lead the design for the next generation of AI-powered features, focusing on implementing agentic flows that streamline or automate complex administrative and student tasks. "AI-fy" core application workflows by identifying opportunities to introduce intelligent defaults, predictive insights, and automated actions that simplify decision-making and reduce manual work. Design clear, intuitive interfaces for AI interactions, ensuring transparency, trustworthiness, and user control within the new agentic features. Own the end-to-end design process for new features and workflows: discovery, user research, wireframes, high-fidelity mockups, interactive prototypes, and design QA after implementation. Design intuitive, accessible experiences across our core product areas: housing applications, roommate matching, room selection, contract management, billing, move-in/move-out processes, and administrative reporting and dashboards. Translate complex higher-ed housing workflows into simple, student-friendly interfaces that require minimal documentation or support calls. Design responsive experiences that work well on desktop and mobile, recognizing that students primarily interact with the platform on their phones. Collaborate with product and engineering to scope and sequence design work within agile sprints, delivering specs and assets that developers can build from confidently. Plan and conduct user interviews with campus housing administrators and students to research design options, validate concepts, and confirm usability and comprehension before development begins. Run moderated and unmoderated usability tests on prototypes and shipped features, synthesizing findings into actionable design recommendations. Champion accessibility (WCAG 2.1 AA) and inclusive design across the platform, ensuring our product works for all students. Stay current with design trends in SaaS, EdTech, and consumer-grade B2B tools, and bring fresh ideas to elevate Housing.Cloud's user experience above competitors like StarRez and eRezLife. Create polished visual assets—annotated screenshots, workflow diagrams, UI walkthroughs, and animated GIFs—for use in our online help center and knowledge base. Design training materials (quick-start guides, feature overviews, step-by-step tutorials) that help administrators and students get the most out of new and existing features. Collaborate with product and customer success teams to ensure documentation stays current as the UI evolves, updating visuals and instructional content alongside each release. What We're Looking For: Required Qualifications & Skills 7+ years of professional UI/UX design experience, with a minimum of 3 years designing for SaaS products. Your portfolio should demonstrate both visual design polish and strong interaction/UX thinking. Significant experience with SaaS redesign—you've taken an existing product, established or evolved a design system, and systematically raised the quality bar across the entire experience. Demonstrated ability to plan and conduct user interviews and usability testing, and to translate research findings directly into design decisions. This is a core part of the role, not a nice-to-have. Fluent English (written and verbal) is required. You'll be writing UI copy, presenting design rationale to stakeholders, interviewing university partners, and producing documentation and training materials. Expert-level proficiency in Figma (our primary design tool), including component libraries, auto-layout, variables/tokens, and prototyping. Strong understanding of responsive and mobile-first design, HTML/CSS fundamentals, and how designs translate to front-end code. Experience creating design assets for help documentation and training materials (annotated screenshots, workflow diagrams, instructional guides). Excellent communication and collaboration skills. You'll be working closely with engineers, product managers, and university partners. Nice-to-Have Qualifications & Skills: Experience in EdTech, higher education, or campus housing—you understand the unique dynamics of institutional buyers and student end-users. Familiarity with front-end frameworks (React, Vue, or similar) and the ability to communicate fluently with developers about implementation feasibility and trade-offs. Experience designing for enterprise integrations or data-heavy admin tools (reporting dashboards, configuration panels, bulk operations). Experience with accessibility auditing tools and remediation strategies. Background in design for platforms that serve two distinct user groups (administrators and students/end-users) with very different needs and technical fluency. Why Work Here: High-impact role: You'll be the design voice of the product. Every student and administrator who uses the company's application will interact with your work. Meaningful mission: We help students find where they belong on campus. Better housing experiences lead to better retention, better community, and better outcomes. Variety and ownership: A rare mix of elevating existing experiences and designing net-new features—you won't get bored. Growing company, growing platform: Influence the product direction and design culture from early on, with room to build and eventually lead a design team. Modern stack and partners: Cloud-native platform, Ellucian partnership, and a core strategic mandate to introduce agentic flows and deeply integrate AI features, ensuring you design for the future of SaaS. Somewhere