Lead UX Researcher

Benefits:

Competitive salary

Location Hybrid: Boston, Massachusetts

Experience Level Senior Lead Level (8+ years of relevant experience)

Role Overview

The Experience Design and Research Lead will lead the application of people-centered design, user research, service design, and experience strategy practices in support of a large-scale eProcurement modernization initiative. This role is responsible for defining and advancing the future-state user experience vision, service architecture, and design strategy while ensuring solutions align with constituent needs, business objectives, accessibility requirements, and technical capabilities.

The position serves as a strategic partner to product managers, business leaders, architects, technical teams, and vendors, guiding the development of intuitive, accessible, and effective digital experiences that improve service delivery and organizational outcomes.

Key Responsibilities

Experience Strategy & Service Design

Lead experience strategy, service design, and user experience initiatives for the enterprise eProcurement platform

Define future-state constituent experience vision, experience architecture, and service design strategies

Align user needs, business objectives, operational workflows, policy requirements, accessibility standards, and technical constraints

Establish experience principles, standards, and frameworks that guide solution delivery

User Research & Customer Insights

Plan, facilitate, and conduct qualitative and quantitative user research activities

Gather and analyze constituent feedback, behavioral insights, and user needs

Lead discovery efforts to identify opportunities for service improvements and digital transformation

Translate research findings into actionable recommendations and design decisions

Experience Architecture & UX Design

Develop and maintain experience artifacts including:

Personas

Journey maps

Service blueprints

Experience models

Information architecture diagrams

Task flows

Wireframes

Prototypes

Experience requirements

Design end-to-end user experiences that are intuitive, scalable, and accessible

Guide iterative design, testing, evaluation, and refinement activities

Product & Roadmap Collaboration

Partner closely with product managers, product owners, architects, vendors, and business stakeholders

Support product roadmap development and prioritization efforts

Facilitate design workshops and collaborative working sessions

Ensure user experience goals are integrated throughout the product lifecycle

Usability, Accessibility & Quality

Establish experience quality standards, accessibility expectations, and usability criteria

Ensure solutions comply with accessibility and inclusive design standards

Develop experience measurement frameworks and success metrics

Review project deliverables to ensure alignment with constituent needs and design objectives

Governance & Stakeholder Management

Present findings, recommendations, risks, and design decisions to leadership and stakeholders

Document experience decisions and ensure alignment across project workstreams

Identify and communicate design trade-offs and implementation considerations

Build consensus among diverse stakeholder groups

AI-Enabled Experience Design

Participate in AI-enabled product and service design initiatives

Evaluate opportunities to leverage AI capabilities to improve user experiences and business outcomes

Support design approaches for AI-enabled workflows, automation, analytics, search, and decision-support capabilities

Ensure AI-powered experiences remain user-centered, accessible, and understandable

Required Qualifications

8+ years of experience leading and executing user experience design, service design, and experience research initiatives

Expertise in people-centered design methodologies and best practices

Experience in:

Experience Architecture

User Experience Design

Service Design

User Research

Interaction Design

Content Design

Rapid Prototyping

Accessibility and Inclusive Design

3+ years leading experience strategy, experience research, and service design efforts for large enterprise platforms or digital products

Experience translating research findings and business requirements into:

Personas

Journey Maps

Service Blueprints

Information Architecture

Wireframes

Prototypes

Task Flows

Usability Requirements

Experience collaborating with product teams, business stakeholders, technical teams, and vendors

Experience working within AI-enabled solution environments and digital transformation initiatives

Strong workshop facilitation, stakeholder engagement, and consensus-building skills

Excellent verbal, written, analytical, and presentation skills

Preferred Qualifications

Experience with public-sector digital transformation initiatives

Experience supporting procurement, ERP, financial, licensing, grants, permitting, or other workflow-intensive enterprise systems

Experience modernizing legacy systems into cloud-based or modular platforms

Experience working within governance-driven environments

Familiarity with:

Accessibility standards (WCAG)

Inclusive Design

Plain Language principles

Privacy and Security requirements

Records Retention policies

Public-sector governance processes

Experience measuring adoption, usability, effectiveness, and customer experience outcomes

Experience evaluating AI-enabled automation, analytics, reporting, search, and decision-support capabilities

Experience designing solutions that support multiple user populations, including internal staff, external users, executives, oversight teams, and the public

Core Skills & Attributes

Strategic thinking with strong user-centered design expertise

Deep experience in service design and customer journey optimization

Excellent research, analysis, and problem-solving capabilities

Strong facilitation and workshop leadership skills

Ability to translate complex business challenges into intuitive experiences

Strong stakeholder management and influence skills

Ability to balance user needs, business goals, policy requirements, and technology constraints

Exceptional communication and storytelling abilities

Strong collaboration across business, product, and technical teams

Continuous improvement mindset focused on measurable outcomes

Ability to challenge assumptions constructively and drive innovation

Commitment to accessibility, usability, and inclusive design

Ideal Background

Candidates with experience leading experience strategy and service design efforts for large-scale enterprise modernization programs, digital government initiatives, procurement platforms, ERP transformations, or workflow-intensive business systems will be particularly well suited for this role.