Lead UX/UI Designer

Title: Lead UX/UI Designer
Location: Washington, DC (4 days on-site)
Duration: Long Term contract, potential for extension or conversion

Role Overview

We are seeking an experienced and visionary Lead UX/UI Designer to drive the strategy, design, and execution of high-impact, customer-facing digital products and websites. As the foundational design lead for this line of business, you will establish the product vision, define design standards, and partner closely with cross-functional teams to craft intuitive, beautifully designed digital experiences.

This is a high-visibility, hands-on role where you will balance strategic thinking with end-to-end execution. You will serve as the primary design advocate for this practice area, laying the groundwork to spearhead and mentor a growing UX team in the future.

Key Responsibilities

• Design Strategy & Vision: Set the overall UX/UI strategy, architecture, and design vision for customer-facing digital products, portals, and web platforms.

• Hands-on Execution: Drive end-to-end design solutions—from initial research, user flows, wireframes, and interactive prototypes to high-fidelity visual UI designs and final production assets.

• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner closely with product managers, developers, researchers, and executive stakeholders to align user experience goals with overarching business objectives.

• Leadership & Growth: Serve as the founding UX lead for this line of business, advocating for human-centered design principles and eventually hiring, guiding, and spearheading a small team of UX/UI designers.

• Design Systems & Standards: Establish, maintain, and scale design systems, component libraries, and style guides to ensure consistent, highly accessible, and polished brand experiences across platforms.

• User-Centric Validation: Facilitate discovery sessions, gather user feedback, and translate insights or usability findings into actionable product refinements.

Qualifications & Key Requirements

• Proven Experience: 6 years of professional UX/UI design experience, with at least 1–2 years in a lead or senior strategic capacity overseeing digital products from concept to launch.

• Polished Portfolio: A required portfolio demonstrating exceptional skill in end-to-end product design, strong visual polish, systematic thinking, intuitive interaction flows, and clear design rationale.

• End-to-End Skillset: Equally strong capabilities in both UX (user journeys, wireframing, information architecture) and UI (typography, color theory, component design, micro-interactions).

• Technical & Tool Proficiency: Advanced proficiency in industry-standard design tools (e.g., Figma, Adobe Creative Cloud, Sketch) and familiarity with design-to-development handoffs.

• Cross-Functional Communication: Outstanding verbal, visual, and written communication skills with a track record of articulating complex design decisions to multi-disciplinary teams and stakeholders.

• Adaptability & Initiative: Self-directed, proactive mindset comfortable with navigating ambiguity, setting design standards from scratch, and driving projects independently.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience building or maintaining design systems at scale.
• Experience in web accessibility standards (WCAG) and designing for global or diverse user bases.
• Background or strong interest in mentoring, managing, or growing a team of designers.

EEO: "Mindlance is an Equal Opportunity Employer and does not discriminate in employment on the basis of – Minority/Gender/Disability/Religion/LGBTQI/Age/Veterans.”