Lead UX Designer - Craft Education

If you’re passionate about building a better future for individuals, communities, and our country—and you’re committed to working hard to play your part in building that future—consider WGU as the next step in your career.

Driven by a mission to expand access to higher education through online, competency-based degree programs, WGU is also committed to being a great place to work for a diverse workforce of student-focused professionals. The university has pioneered a new way to learn in the 21st century, one that has received praise from academic, industry, government, and media leaders. Whatever your role, working for WGU gives you a part to play in helping students graduate, creating a better tomorrow for themselves and their families.

If you’re passionate about building a better future for individuals, communities, and our country—and you’re committed to working hard to play your part in building that future—consider Craft Education as the next step in your career.

Craft Education is on a mission to solve skilled labor shortages by powering work-based learning pathways for all.  

At Craft, we’re revolutionizing the apprenticeship degree, combining on-the-job learning with accredited instruction to create innovative educational pathways that accommodate working professionals and meet employer needs.  Our flagship product - Craft Connect - helps organizations administer apprentice degree programs and address mission-critical data and reporting needs.  Through the same platform, Craft is also transforming how on-the-job learning converts into academic credits.

Our team of technology, education and workforce professionals also provides technical assistance to organizations looking to launch and manage apprenticeship degree programs.  We are working tirelessly to accelerate the expansion of these programs along with the data infrastructure that underpins them.  

If you’re looking to join the work-based learning revolution, we’d love to talk with you.  At Craft, you’ll have the opportunity to solve hard problems in a high-growth startup environment and make a lasting impact on the future of education and workforce development.  We couldn’t be more excited to advance this work as a team of innovative, collaborative and mission-oriented professionals - we hope you’ll consider joining us.   

Primary Responsibilities

• Leads the design efforts across product lines, collaborating with the Lead UX Researcher to integrate research insights into the design process.
• Translates user needs, business goals, and research findings into intuitive and innovative user experiences.
• Develops and maintains design systems that scale as the company grows, ensuring consistency across all digital touchpoints.
• Collaborates with product managers, engineers, and other stakeholders to define product roadmaps and ensure alignment between design vision and business strategy.
• Prototypes and iterates on design solutions based on feedback from research, user testing, and cross-functional teams.
• Advocates for the user at every stage of the design process, ensuring a seamless and user-friendly product experience.
• Leads workshops and brainstorming sessions to foster collaboration and creativity across teams.
• Creates and communicates design strategies and UX roadmaps that align with the company’s goals, metrics, and objectives.
• Build and manage a comprehensive design repository to organize and share design assets, guidelines, and best practices especially regarding responsive design.
• Provide feedback and guidance to other designers, fostering a collaborative and growth-focused environment as the team grows.
• Stay up to date with the latest design trends, tools, and technologies to ensure our products are at the forefront of innovation.
• Ensure accessibility and inclusive design principles are integrated into all design work.
• Performs other job-related duties as assigned.

This job description includes a general representation of job requirements rather than a comprehensive inventory of all required responsibilities or work activities.  The contents of this document or related job requirements may change at any time with or without notice.

Qualifications

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Understanding of front-end development component building and ability to troubleshoot UI issues.
• Experience working closely with UX research teams to incorporate user insights into design processes using tools like Dovetail.
• Expertise in creating wireframes, prototypes, and high-fidelity designs using tools like Figma..
• Excellent communication and presentation skills, with the ability to articulate design decisions and influence stakeholders using collaborative tools like Miro for white boarding and diagramming.
• Ability to take command of meetings with teammates, executive team, or external stakeholders with confidence.
• Self-starter mentality with the ability to identify design opportunities independently.
• Comfort with wearing multiple hats and jumping in to help wherever and whenever needed.
• Collaborative spirit, working cross-functionally with researchers, engineers, and product managers.
• Commitment to transparency, feedback, and continuous improvement.

Education          

• Bachelor’s Degree.

Experience

• 6 years of experience in UX/UI design or relevant field, preferably in a fast-paced start-up environment.
• Strong portfolio demonstrating a deep understanding of user-centered design principles and the ability to translate insights into design solutions

Experience in lieu of education

Equivalent relevant experience performing the essential functions of this job may substitute for education degree requirements.  Generally, equivalent relevant experience is defined as 1 year of experience for 1 year of education and is the discretion of the hiring manager.

Preferred Qualifications

• Government agency experience (especially Department of Labor or Workforce Development) is a plus.
• Experience working in an Agile development process.
• Experience using user research throughout the product life cycle, incorporating data from multiple sources into decision-making.
• Higher Education and Agency experience

Work Location

Work location is determined by role and business needs. In addition to our headquarters in Salt Lake City, we have office locations in Phoenix and Austin with several satellite locations across the US. Senior leadership, administrative functions, and technology teams are typically assigned to work in one of our office locations. While this position will begin with a Remote/Work-From-Home designation, we anticipate a Flex/Hybrid model in the future once a dedicated office space in Nashville is established.

The salary range for this position takes into account the wide range of factors that are considered in making compensation decisions including but not limited to skill sets; experience and training; licensure and certifications; and other business and organizational needs.

At WGU, it is not typical for an individual to be hired at or near the top of the range for their position, and compensation decisions are dependent on the facts and circumstances of each case. A reasonable estimate of the current range is:
 

How to apply: apply online

Full-time Regular Positions (FT classification, standard working hours = 40)

This is a full-time, regular position that is eligible for bonuses; medical, dental, vision, telehealth and mental healthcare; health savings account and flexible spending account; basic and voluntary life insurance; disability coverage; accident, critical illness and hospital indemnity supplemental coverages; legal and identity theft coverage; retirement savings plan; wellbeing program; discounted WGU tuition; and flexible paid time off for rest and relaxation with no need for accrual, flexible paid sick time with no need for accrual, 11 paid holidays, and other paid leaves, including up to 12 weeks of parental leave.

The University is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability or protected veteran status.