Senior Manager UX Design - ACC

Aquent is partnering with a leading global enterprise that is revolutionizing the retail landscape through innovative technology and unparalleled customer experiences. In this pivotal leadership role, you will have a profound and direct impact on the digital journeys of millions of global users daily, shaping the future of commerce by driving user experience strategy and fostering a culture of design excellence.

The Opportunity

We are seeking an exceptional leader to step into a key role driving user experience strategy and execution across a significant product portfolio. You will empower a talented team of designers, collaborate closely with cross-functional product and engineering leaders, and ensure that every digital interaction is intuitive, accessible, and highly impactful. Your vision will directly translate into tangible improvements that resonate with users on a global scale, fostering innovation and design excellence at every step.

What You Will Do

• Define and champion user experience roadmaps and design strategies that expertly balance business objectives, technical feasibility, and critical customer needs.
• Establish, scale, and govern robust design frameworks, interaction patterns, and comprehensive design systems across native mobile (iOS/Android) and web platforms.
• Drive end-to-end design consistency across multi-disciplinary teams, collaborating closely with Engineering Architects and Product Managers.
• Monitor industry trends, emerging technologies, and competitive benchmarks to anticipate user needs and inspire continuous design innovation.
• Oversee the entire UX lifecycle for complex initiatives, from user journeys and information architecture to wireframes, high-fidelity prototypes, and detailed design specifications.
• Guide teams in executing qualitative and quantitative research, user interviews, contextual inquiries, and usability testing to validate design hypotheses and inform decisions.
• Review Product Requirement Documents (PRDs) and technical architectures to ensure design intent and usability standards are meticulously maintained through launch.
• Partner with technical teams to develop functional proofs of concept, evaluate UI components, and troubleshoot prototype implementations.
• Manage, mentor, and foster the professional growth of UX, interaction, and visual designers, cultivating an inclusive, high-trust team culture.
• Set clear performance expectations, conduct evaluations, recognize high performance, and lead resource planning, workload allocation, and project milestone tracking.
• Act as a strategic partner and trusted advisor to cross-functional leaders in Product Management, Engineering, Merchandising, Analytics, and Customer Advocacy.
• Translate complex customer insights and data analytics into compelling narratives and executive presentations to secure strategic alignment.
• Facilitate co-creation workshops, design sprints, and cross-functional brainstorming sessions to drive collaborative innovation.

Required Skills & Experience

• A Bachelor's degree in UI/UX Design, Graphic Design, Visual Communication, Product Design, Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related field, plus 5+ years of professional experience in UX/UI, interaction design, or product design (or 7+ years of professional experience in these fields without a degree).
• 2+ years of direct supervisory or people management experience leading design teams.
• Demonstrated expertise in UX & Interaction Design, including information architecture, wireframing, user task flows, journey mapping, site maps, and platform-specific design patterns (such as iOS Human Interface Guidelines and Android Material Design).
• Proven ability in Design Systems & Frameworks, including developing scalable component libraries, setting UI style guides and templates, and producing precise system-level design specifications.
• Strong background in User Research & Discovery, encompassing qualitative and quantitative research methods, contextual inquiries, user interviews, surveys, persona creation, and synthesizing behavioral data and analytics into actionable design insights.
• Experience with Usability Testing & Iteration, including designing test plans, building test scenarios, conducting user acceptance testing (UAT), and iterating based on empirical user feedback.
• Proficiency in Prototyping & Technical Acumen, including interactive prototyping, proof-of-concept modeling, and collaborating with engineering architectures (familiarity with HTML/CSS/JavaScript and front-end solutions for Service-Oriented Architectures environments).
• Exceptional People Leadership & Talent Development skills, including managing and mentoring designers, setting performance expectations, and cultivating a positive team culture.
• Demonstrated Strategic Influence & Cross-Functional Alignment abilities, including executive storytelling, consensus building across engineering and business partners, and translating high-level business goals into actionable UX roadmaps.

Nice-to-Have Qualifications

• Master's degree in UI/UX Design, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Product Design, or a related discipline.
• 7+ years of hands-on design experience, with 5+ years in large-scale eCommerce, retail, supply chain, or enterprise environments.
• 4+ years driving UX strategy across multi-product portfolios.
• Demonstrated expertise in digital accessibility, including practical implementation of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 AA standards and assistive technologies.
• Experience designing front-end user experiences interfacing with Service-Oriented Architectures (SOA) and design system component libraries.
• Recognized design or design-thinking certification (such as IDEO U Foundations in Design Thinking).