Lead User Experience Designer

Lead User Experience Designer REMOTE- EST hours 3-4 month contract Must be a US Citizen Targeted start date: 4/20/26 $65-$69/hr. W2 Responsibilities and Duties: This job will endorse, adopt, and drive a product experience vision using range of user-centered design methodologies, providing insights and product design recommendations that will digitally transform healthcare and help our members live their best lives. This job will focus on process and project implementation partnerships, requirements synthesis on multiple priority projects, and balancing design advocacy with thought leadership and mentoring junior staff to deliver digital product strategies for Highmark Health. Organize and facilitate human-centered design practices such as brainstorming exercises, rapid prototyping, journey mapping, usability testing reporting, user needs analysis and proof of concept demonstrations that lead to customer validated, scalable design recommendations Mentor and coach designers in Human Centered Design, Lean UX, and Agile Methodologies as well as prototyping tools. Lead the team in understanding user needs, mapping needs to product value to create ideal experiences that bridge the business and user needs together. Produce measurable results by guiding the team through coaching and delegation to understand business goals and how to meet user expectations and customer journeys within technical capabilities. Foster and maintain a collaborative environment between cross-functional teams including digital strategy, product management, and development teams Provide subject matter expertise on multiple, complex projects, and proactively identify and prioritize opportunities that continuously elevate the product experience Take the lead in defining the vision for a product and advocate for and contribute to the digital roadmap by advocating key experience metrics and a continuous learning process Be a thought leader in user experience for internal and external teams and work with other leaders to advance the user experience design discipline within the enterprise, solving user problems with empathy and understanding of our customers. Other duties as assigned or requested. Required Qualifications: Bachelor's UX Design, Human-Computer Interaction, or a design related field Required OR 6 years of related and progressive experience in lieu of Bachelor's degree. 7 years with Human Centered design strategies and design thinking exercises, and validated expertise in usability, analytics, user testing 7 years collaborating with Front-end engineers and Product managers to organize project planning and execution standards 7 years using facilitation, collaboration, and consensus-building skills, with experience in presenting to cross-functional teams and key stakeholders Figma Prototyping and Development Mode Training Jira Agile Management Human Centered Design (HCD) exercises or Design Thinking skills Generative AI Tools like Gemini and Copilot SAFe Agile Training Certification Fast learner who can lead Design and Development teams to launch products. Understand Accessibility Rules, and is comfortable leading cross-collaborative teams in Development, AEM Publishing, Content Strategy, and Product/Marketing Strategy. Veterans Sourcing Group LLC