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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for UX Manager

💰 $ - $

🎯 Role Definition

We are seeking an experienced UX Manager to lead design strategy and execution across product lines. The UX Manager will own the end-to-end user experience process — from user research and discovery to interaction design, prototyping, usability testing, and design-system governance — while mentoring a team of designers and partnering cross-functionally with product, engineering, data, and marketing to deliver measurable user and business outcomes. This role requires strong leadership, hands-on design judgement, and an ability to translate user insights into product strategy, prioritized roadmaps, and high-quality experiences that improve activation, retention, and conversion.

Keywords: UX Manager, user experience, UX leadership, design strategy, user research, usability testing, design systems, interaction design, prototyping, Figma, accessibility, information architecture, product design, cross-functional collaboration, agile.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Senior UX Designer with proven mentoring experience and cross-functional impact
  • Lead Product Designer responsible for product-level UX strategy
  • UX Research Lead or Interaction Designer with leadership experience

Advancement To:

  • Head of UX / Director of User Experience
  • VP of Product Design / Chief Design Officer
  • Product Leadership roles (Director of Product or Head of Product Design)

Lateral Moves:

  • Design Operations Manager
  • Product Management (Senior Product Manager / Group PM)
  • Customer Experience (CX) or Research Leadership roles

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Lead, mentor, and grow a multidisciplinary UX team (product designers, interaction designers, UX researchers, and content designers), setting clear goals, career development plans, and performance evaluations to build a high-performing design organization.
  • Define and own the UX strategy and roadmap in collaboration with product leadership, translating business objectives and user needs into prioritized design initiatives that drive KPIs (activation, retention, conversion, NPS).
  • Oversee and contribute to user research programs: plan and prioritize qualitative and quantitative studies, synthesize findings into actionable insights, and ensure research influences product decisions across the organization.
  • Establish and champion a scalable design system, including components, patterns, documentation, and governance processes to ensure consistency, accessibility, and speed of delivery across platforms (web, mobile).
  • Drive the end-to-end design process for strategic product features: discovery, problem framing, user journeys, wireframes, high-fidelity mockups, interactive prototypes, and handoff to engineering with clear acceptance criteria.
  • Collaborate closely with Product Managers and Engineering leads to define product requirements, scope trade-offs, delivery timelines, and success metrics while embedding user-centered design into agile workflows.
  • Run and validate usability testing and A/B experiments, analyze results with product and data teams, and iterate designs to measurably improve conversion, usability, and engagement.
  • Advocate for inclusive design and ensure products meet WCAG accessibility standards; prioritize accessibility issues in roadmap planning and QA processes.
  • Create, maintain, and socialize UX metrics and dashboards (task success, time-on-task, SUS, conversion funnels) to measure the impact of design efforts and inform continuous improvement.
  • Own stakeholder communication: present design rationale, research insights, and roadmap updates to executives and cross-functional partners in a clear, persuasive manner.
  • Recruit top design talent: create job descriptions, evaluate portfolios, lead interviews, and drive an effective onboarding process for new hires.
  • Manage design resource allocation, budgets, and vendor relationships (e.g., research vendors, design tools, accessibility consultants) to maximize team effectiveness.
  • Facilitate cross-functional workshops and design sprints to align teams on priorities, accelerate problem solving, and validate concepts with real users rapidly.
  • Drive product discovery by collaborating with analytics, customer success, and sales to identify user pain points, opportunity areas, and evidence-backed hypotheses for new features.
  • Ensure timely and high-quality design deliverables by implementing design review rituals, quality standards, and efficient handoff practices (Figma libraries, tokens, documentation).
  • Coach product teams to adopt a user-centered mindset: train PMs, engineers, and stakeholders on basic UX principles, research interpretation, and measuring UX impact.
  • Maintain a deep understanding of market trends, competitive product experiences, and emerging UX patterns to inform product differentiation and innovation.
  • Balance strategic leadership with hands-on design contribution when needed—able to produce wireframes, prototypes, or research artifacts to unblock the team or accelerate delivery.
  • Partner with engineering to define technical feasibility and implementation constraints early in the design process to reduce rework and ensure a high-quality user experience.
  • Lead post-launch retrospectives focused on UX outcomes: gather learnings, measure impact against success criteria, and incorporate findings into future design cycles.
  • Build and maintain a culture of experimentation: encourage hypothesis-driven design, rapid prototyping, and learning from shipping to production.
  • Promote cross-platform UX consistency (mobile, responsive web, native apps) by enforcing shared interaction patterns and documenting platform-specific behaviors.
  • Serve as the UX voice in product planning, prioritization, and roadmap discussions to ensure long-term product health and sustainable design investments.
  • Manage risk by setting design standards for privacy, security, and regulatory requirements that affect user experience (e.g., GDPR-related consent flows).

Secondary Functions

  • Support ad-hoc product and stakeholder requests by providing rapid UX assessments, expert opinions, or quick prototypes to validate assumptions.
  • Contribute to the organization’s design operations and tooling strategy (e.g., Figma governance, component libraries, design tokens) to reduce duplicated work.
  • Assist marketing and content teams with UX-informed campaign design, landing page optimization, and conversion-focused experiences.
  • Mentor junior researchers and designers on research methods, interview moderation, synthesis techniques, and creating actionable insight artifacts.
  • Participate in hiring committees and provide cross-functional interview feedback to maintain high hiring standards across product and design.
  • Help shape OKRs and success metrics related to user experience and report on their progress to leadership on a quarterly basis.
  • Collaborate with customer success and support to triage high-impact usability issues and prioritize fixes in upcoming sprints.
  • Support accessibility audits and remediation plans by coordinating engineering fixes and validating compliance with automated and manual testing.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • UX Strategy & Leadership: proven experience defining and executing a product-level UX strategy that aligns with business goals and user needs.
  • User Research & Synthesis: strong competency in mixed-methods research (usability testing, contextual inquiries, surveys, card sorting) and translating insights into prioritized recommendations.
  • Interaction Design & Information Architecture: ability to design complex flows, IA, navigation systems, and task-focused experiences for desktop and mobile.
  • Prototyping & Wireframing: expert-level use of Figma, Sketch, Adobe XD, or similar tools to create interactive prototypes and production-ready assets.
  • Design Systems & Component Libraries: experience building and maintaining design systems, component libraries, tokens, and cross-platform consistency.
  • Usability Testing & Experimentation: designing and running moderated/unmoderated tests, A/B testing, and iterative validation to optimize UX metrics.
  • Accessibility (a11y): deep knowledge of WCAG standards and hands-on experience implementing accessible design solutions.
  • Data & Analytics Integration: ability to read and act on product analytics (Google Analytics, Mixpanel, Amplitude) and use metrics to validate design decisions.
  • Visual Design Fundamentals: strong sense of typography, layout, color, and visual hierarchy to influence high-quality UI outcomes.
  • Basic Front-end Literacy: familiarity with HTML/CSS and front-end constraints to improve communication with engineering and feasible handoffs.
  • Product & Agile Processes: experience working in Agile/Scrum environments, backlog grooming, and sprint planning with cross-functional teams.
  • Tooling & Collaboration: proficiency with collaboration tools (Figma, Miro, Jira, Confluence, Notion) and remote design workflows.

Soft Skills

  • Leadership & People Management: proven ability to hire, develop, and retain design talent while fostering psychological safety and career growth.
  • Communication & Storytelling: excellent ability to present research insights, design rationale, and roadmaps to diverse audiences including executives.
  • Stakeholder Management & Influence: strong negotiation and alignment skills to balance user needs, business priorities, and technical constraints.
  • Strategic Thinking & Prioritization: ability to convert ambiguous problems into prioritized workstreams and measurable outcomes.
  • Empathy & User Advocacy: relentless focus on understanding user problems and advocating for solutions that improve the user experience.
  • Collaboration & Cross-functional Partnership: demonstrated success working with product, engineering, research, marketing, and customer success.
  • Problem Solving & Decision-making: comfort making trade-offs and data-informed decisions under uncertainty.
  • Mentorship & Coaching: aptitude for developing designers' craft, critique skills, and career trajectories.
  • Adaptability & Resilience: ability to navigate shifting priorities in fast-paced product environments.
  • Attention to Detail & Quality Mindset: strong commitment to design polish, consistency, and production readiness.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor’s degree in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Interaction Design, Graphic Design, Psychology, Computer Science, or related field. Equivalent practical experience and portfolio may substitute.

Preferred Education:

  • Master’s degree in HCI, Design, Human Factors, or MBA with design leadership coursework.

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)
  • Interaction Design / Product Design
  • Psychology / Cognitive Science
  • Visual Communication / Graphic Design
  • Computer Science / Software Engineering

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

  • 5–10+ years in UX/Product Design roles with demonstrated progression; including at least 2–4 years leading or managing designers.

Preferred:

  • 7+ years in product UX with 3+ years of management experience, proven track record of shipping consumer or enterprise products at scale, strong portfolio demonstrating strategy-to-delivery impact, and experience with design systems and quantitative outcome measurement.
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