UI/UX Lead

UI/UX Lead Dallas, TX (Flexible remote work arrangements available) Full‑Time About Matilda Cloud Enterprise infrastructure software, data center management, cloud migration, cloud‑to‑cloud services, has long been a domain where user experience was treated as an afterthought. We believe that is a competitive mistake, and this role exists to prove it. The UI/UX Lead will establish design as a discipline within our product organization and set the standard for what our products look and feel like to the people who use them every day. This is a player‑coach role. You will be a hands‑on designer producing wireframes, prototypes, and high‑fidelity designs across our suite of four products, while simultaneously building the UX practice: the research methods, design system, collaboration patterns, and quality bar that will carry the function as it grows. You will report to the Director of Product Management and work in close daily partnership with product managers and engineering. Responsibilities Hands‑On Design Execution: Own UI/UX design end‑to‑end across the product suite: user flows, wireframes, interaction design, high‑fidelity mockups, and production‑ready specs delivered to engineering. Design complex enterprise workflows with clarity and efficiency. Interfaces used by data center operators, cloud architects, and IT administrators who value precision and speed over visual novelty. Produce design artifacts at the right level of fidelity for the stage of work: rough flows for early discovery, polished prototypes for usability testing, annotated specs for engineering handoff. Maintain design quality and consistency across four products simultaneously, managing your own time and priorities without losing coherence across the portfolio. UX Research & User Advocacy: Establish and lead a user research practice including moderated usability testing, contextual inquiry, and lightweight guerrilla research that gives the product team a continuous, direct connection to how real users experience the product. Work with Product Managers to integrate research into discovery and validation cycles; make user insights actionable and traceable to design decisions. Build relationships with enterprise customer contacts who are willing to participate in research; coordinate research access in partnership with sales and customer success. Serve as the voice of the user in product and engineering conversations, willing to push back on decisions that optimize for development convenience at the expense of usability. Design System & Practice Foundation: Define and build a foundational design system: component library, interaction patterns, typography, color, and spacing standards that create consistency across the product suite and accelerate design‑to‑engineering handoff. Establish design file organization, version control practices, and handoff standards that make the design process legible and reliable to engineering partners. Document design rationale and UX guidelines in a form that survives beyond any individual designer and builds institutional knowledge that scales as the team grows. Create and maintain a UX quality bar: what does ‘good’ look like for our products, and how do we evaluate shipped work against that standard. AI Tooling in the Design Workflow: Actively leverage AI‑powered design tools, including generative UI tools, AI‑assisted prototyping, and automated accessibility checking to increase design throughput and exploration speed without sacrificing craft quality. Stay current on the rapidly evolving landscape of AI tools relevant to UX work: image generation, design‑to‑code, user research synthesis, and copy generation with a practical, selective perspective on where they genuinely help versus where they produce noise. Share AI‑assisted workflows and tool recommendations with product managers and engineering leads where relevant, helping adjacent functions benefit from design‑adjacent AI tooling. Engineering & PM Collaboration: Work in close daily partnership with Product Managers and engineering leads, participating in discovery, sprint planning, and backlog grooming with a design perspective that improves both what gets built and how it gets spec'd. Build a trusted, productive working relationship with frontend engineers: clear on handoff expectations, responsive during implementation, and pragmatic about design adjustments when engineering constraints are real. Contribute to sprint reviews with a UX lens, evaluating shipped work against design intent and flagging gaps that matter to users. Practice Leadership & Growth: As the UX function grows, play an active role in hiring, onboarding, and mentoring additional designers establishing the culture, standards, and ways of working that define the team. Advocate within the organization for the value of design: building credibility through the quality of your work, the clarity of your research findings, and the measurable impact of UX improvements on product adoption and customer satisfaction. Qualifications 5+ years of UI/UX design experience, with a portfolio that demonstrates strong visual design, interaction design, and UX research skills across complex product workflows. Proven experience designing enterprise or B2B software, ideally for technical users such as administrators, operators, or engineers; familiarity with the density and precision requirements of enterprise interfaces. Demonstrated ability to own a design system or component library: building it, maintaining it, and driving adoption across a product suite. Hands‑on experience conducting and synthesizing user research; you run your own studies, not just consume research done by others. Fluency with modern design tools (Figma required); working knowledge of prototyping, handoff, and component workflows within those tools. Active, practical use of AI design tools in your current workflow: you can speak concretely to which tools you use, for what, and where you have found the limits. Track record of productive collaboration with engineering teams; you understand implementation constraints and know how to design beautifully within them. Strong communication and facilitation skills; able to present design rationale clearly, receive feedback constructively, and advocate for users in cross‑functional discussions. Preferred Qualifications Experience in data center infrastructure, cloud services, or enterprise infrastructure software — or a demonstrated ability to develop domain fluency quickly in a technical product area. Background establishing UX practices, design systems, or research programs in organizations where they did not previously exist. Familiarity with accessibility standards (WCAG) and experience designing to meet enterprise compliance requirements. Experience working in a growth‑stage company where design was being established as a function alongside maturing PM and engineering practices. Exposure to front‑end development enough to understand what is easy and hard to implement and to communicate with engineers effectively about implementation trade‑offs. What We Offer Competitive compensation including base salary, bonus, and equity. A genuine founding opportunity to establish design as a discipline: the systems, standards, and culture you build here will define UX at this company. Close partnership with a Director of Product Management who values design as a strategic function, not a production service. Hybrid work model from our Texas office with comprehensive benefits including health, dental, vision, 401(k) with match, and generous PTO. We are an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. To apply, submit your resume and a brief description of a product you owned end‑to‑end and what you would do differently if you built it again. #J-18808-Ljbffr