Lead User Experience Designer – Mobile & Platforms

Job Title: Lead User Experience (UX) Designer – Mobile & Platforms

Location: Oakland, CA

Duration: 1 year

Notes

• LOCAL CANDIDATES ONLY. The role is hybrid, 2 days a month in the office.
• TOP THINGS:
• Strong advocate for user-centered design
• Systems thinker for end-to-end experiences
• Clear communicator of design rationale
  

Lead User Experience (UX) Designer – Mobile & Platforms

Location: Oakland, CA (Hybrid)

Department: Grid Research Innovation & Development

Job Description

Role Overview

Project Charlie is seeking a Lead User Experience (UX) Designer – Mobile & Platforms to provide leadership in understanding customer needs, defining product experiences, and shaping the overall design vision for a new customer-facing mobile platform. This role begins as a hands-on design leader and evolves into leading a small UX function.

The Lead UX Designer owns end-to-end experience design—researching user behaviors, identifying unmet needs, documenting current-state journeys, and driving future-state improvements while partnering closely with Product and Engineering.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead user research and discovery to understand customer behaviors and pain points
• Conduct interviews, usability testing, surveys, and behavioral analysis
• Capture and document current-state journeys and experiences
• Translate insights into design strategies and requirements
• Design user flows, wireframes, prototypes, and high-fidelity UI
• Own and drive overall look and feel of the platform
• Define and evolve design systems and guidelines
• Partner with Product and Engineering to ensure feasibility
• Facilitate workshops and stakeholder alignment
• Lead usability testing and iterative improvements
• Mentor designers and oversee external partners
• Ensure accessibility, privacy, and compliance standards
  
  

Minimum Experience

• 8–10 years of UX/UI or product design experience
• Strong background in user research, interaction design, and mobile design
• Experience across end-to-end product design lifecycle
• Ability to simplify complex systems into intuitive experiences
• Experience with journey maps and design systems
• Proficiency with tools like Figma, Sketch, or Adobe XD
• Cross-functional collaboration with Product and Engineering
• Ability to lead and influence without authority
  
  

Desired Experience

• Experience designing customer-facing products at scale
• Experience in regulated industries
• Familiarity with data-rich or IoT ecosystems
• Experience supporting launch and iteration
• Experience working with external agencies
  
  

Desired Characteristics

• Strong advocate for user-centered design
• Systems thinker for end-to-end experiences
• Clear communicator of design rationale
• Collaborative and cross-functional leader
• Balances user, technical, and business needs
• Comfortable with ambiguity
  
  

What Success Looks Like

• Customer insights drive product decisions
• Platform delivers intuitive and cohesive experiences
• Design influences product strategy
• Teams align around a clear experience vision
• Continuous improvements based on user feedback
  
  

Skills: mobile,drive,customer,research,platforms,clear,ux,user experience,design,product design