Lead Product Designer — SPECTRAFORCE, New York, NY

Job title: Lead Product Designer

Location: NYC 51 Madison Hybrid - 3 days per week - Preferred candidates are local to the NYC Home Office;

however, we are open to hybrid or fully remote candidates located anywhere in the U.S. for the right individual.

Contract Duration: 12 months

Interviews:

1st:Screening w/mgr

2nd: Portfolio/Case study presentation panel interview

3rd: Design Leadership

4th: Product Partner

*Please note: 3rd & 4th might flow back-to-back

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What you’ll do

• Turn ambiguous, cross-cutting problems into clear user flows and high-fidelity prototypes for core NYL360 workflows (e.g., navigation, dashboards, servicing tasks, forms, document and data review, and key decision points).

• Set and govern the design quality bar: production-ready prototypes (component usage, states, responsive behavior, content guidance, accessibility notes, and edge cases), Dev Mode handoff, and design QA against intent.

• Lead use of Madi: apply and extend components and patterns, drive contributions through the contribution process, and keep documentation current so the team moves faster with each release.

• Influence the roadmap and drive delivery in SAFe

• Influence roadmap and prioritization with Product Owners/Managers and leadership; contribute to PI planning and sprint ceremonies and keep design ahead of development across concurrent sprints.

• Collaborate daily with Product, Engineering, and Implementation teams; manage stakeholder conflict, make pragmatic tradeoffs, and unblock engineers during build.

• Work from analytics, usability research, support drivers, and stakeholder input to identify friction, prioritize fixes and enhancements, and translate findings into designs that move the numbers.

• Identify delivery, compliance, and experience risks early and escalate them with clear options.

• Lead co-creation and mentor the team

• Facilitate working sessions (story mapping, journey mapping, design studios, and critique) to align on problems, explore options, and land decisions quickly.

• Coach and mentor designers on the NYL360 squad through critique and feedback, raising craft and consistency across the team’s work.

• Present design strategy, rationale, and impact to senior and executive stakeholders, framing decisions in terms of business value.

• Ship for outcomes, not output

• Advocate for the user in cross-functional discussions, using evidence to align stakeholders on the right problems to solve.

• Bring AI-assisted workflows into the team’s practice and guide design for AI-powered NYL360 capabilities with transparency, accessibility, and compliance in mind.

You should have

Portfolio required: Please include a portfolio or case studies as a document or link with your resume when applying (including any passwords). Please do not use Dropbox or other file-sharing tools we cannot access

Skills

• Strong command of interaction design, visual design, and UX writing collaboration, including content architecture across journeys.

• Fluent in AI-augmented design workflows (e.g., Figma AI, Claude Design, ChatGPT, NotebookLM) with measurable efficiency gains; able to review AI-generated outputs for quality and compliance and lead AI toolset adoption across the team.

• Expert in Figma (components, variables, auto layout, prototyping, and Dev Mode handoff), able to set standards and train others. Proficient with FigJam and Miro; comfortable with Adobe Creative Suite.

• Familiarity with technical architecture concepts (service-oriented architecture, micro-services, data models) and front-end basics (HTML, CSS).

• Strong understanding of accessibility standards (WCAG 2.1 AA) and inclusive design, with the ability to define accessibility standards for a product portfolio.

• Executive-level communication skills; able to align cross-functional leaders and give engineers and designers clear, actionable direction.

• Meticulous attention to detail across states, edge cases, and content, with a pragmatic sense of what to ship now versus later.

• Comfortable using qualitative + quantitative inputs (e.g., usability testing, Qualtrics, Adobe Analytics/GA4) and OKR-based metrics to prioritize and iterate on live features.

Education

• Bachelor’s degree in a relevant field (e.g., Design, Interaction Design, Fine Arts, HCI) or equivalent practical experience.

Nice to have

• Experience in life insurance, financial services, or other highly regulated industries designing complex application or servicing experiences.

• Experience architecting agentic or conversational UX patterns (e.g., goal-oriented flows, fallback states, trust and transparency, and AI-to-human handoff) with attention to Responsible AI and privacy-by-design practices.

• Experience shipping designs across a range of front ends (e.g., content management systems, low/no-code platforms, framework-based front ends, native apps).

• Experience with experimentation (A/B testing), personalization, and optimization of key journeys (adoption, task completion, and engagement).

• Advocates for accessibility best practices, with deep knowledge of ADA compliance and WCAG guidelines, and experience embedding them into design solutions.

Applicant Notices & Disclaimers

• For information on benefits, equal opportunity employment, and location-specific applicant notices, click here

At SPECTRAFORCE, we are committed to maintaining a workplace that ensures fair compensation and wage transparency in adherence with all applicable state and local laws.This position's pay range is $65.00/hr - $75.00/hr.