Lead Specialist, UX Designer

Pearson•Hoboken, NJ

3d•Hybrid

About The Position

We're looking for a Lead Specialist, UX Designer with deep expertise in user-centered design to lead the creation of impactful experiences for our higher education products. You're someone who operates with strategic vision, exceptional craft, and strong influence—driving design excellence while mentoring others and shaping product direction that serves millions of learners. You'll partner closely with content, product, research, and engineering teams and be responsible for leading design for major product areas, full user journeys, and platform-level initiatives across web and mobile, from discovery through launch and iteration. You will create high-fidelity, pixel-perfect designs including comprehensive user flows, interactive prototypes, and detailed specifications that enable seamless engineering handoff. You will define and evolve design patterns and components for our design system used across multiple product teams, with consideration for scalability, accessibility, and long-term consistency. You will lead user research initiatives: planning studies, facilitating sessions, synthesizing insights, and translating findings into actionable design improvements and strategic product recommendations. You will present design work to senior stakeholders and cross-functional partners, building conviction for design decisions that shape product strategy. You will mentor junior and mid-level designers through design crits, pair designing, and thoughtful feedback that accelerates their growth and career development. You will be challenged in an organization that values vision, execution, and persistence. You will take ownership of complex design challenges by demonstrating systems thinking, connecting user needs, business goals, and technical architecture to create solutions that extend beyond individual features to holistic product experiences. UX Designers at Pearson are embedded within product teams that are deeply collaborative, and each member is directly responsible for the team's success.

Requirements

7-10 years of product design experience
Portfolio that demonstrates craft excellence, strategic thinking, and measurable impact on product metrics, user satisfaction, and business outcomes
Experience leading design for major features or product areas affecting millions of users
Experience designing AI-powered experiences is critical
Strategic thinker who brings exceptional judgment to complex decisions, leading user research, advocating for design quality, navigating technical constraints and competing priorities, you excel at making thoughtful tradeoffs, reducing ambiguity, and defining clear paths forward through strong problem-framing and stakeholder communication
Equally comfortable designing pixel-perfect interfaces and defining scalable design systems used across multiple teams, always grounding your work in the intersection of user needs, business goals, and technical feasibility
Able to thrive in cross-functional environments where collaboration and influence are essential, partnering seamlessly with content strategists, product managers, researchers, engineers, and senior stakeholders to solve complex problems, build consensus, and ship high-quality experiences
An experienced mentor who elevates the craft and strategic thinking of junior and mid-level designers through thoughtful feedback, design crits, and knowledge sharing
Confident presenting your work to senior leadership and influencing product strategy through compelling storytelling and clear design rationale

Responsibilities

Lead design for major product areas, full user journeys, and platform-level initiatives across web and mobile, from discovery through launch and iteration
Create high-fidelity, pixel-perfect designs including comprehensive user flows, interactive prototypes, and detailed specifications that enable seamless engineering handoff
Define and evolve design patterns and components for our design system used across multiple product teams, with consideration for scalability, accessibility, and long-term consistency
Lead user research initiatives: planning studies, facilitating sessions, synthesizing insights, and translating findings into actionable design improvements and strategic product recommendations
Present design work to senior stakeholders and cross-functional partners, building conviction for design decisions that shape product strategy
Mentor junior and mid-level designers through design crits, pair designing, and thoughtful feedback that accelerates their growth and career development
Lead design for complex, end-to-end user experiences across multiple platforms and surfaces, from initial discovery through launch and iteration
Partner with product managers to define and frame design problems, identify opportunities, and establish clear success metrics before jumping into solutions
Create high-fidelity, pixel-perfect designs including user flows and interactive prototypes with exceptional craft and attention to detail
Define and evolve reusable components and patterns for the design system used across multiple product teams, with comprehensive documentation covering scalability, accessibility, and cross-platform consistency
Lead user research initiatives (or co-lead with researchers) including study planning, facilitation, and synthesis, translating insights into actionable design iterations and strategic product recommendations
Present design work and strategic recommendations to senior leadership, building conviction for design decisions that influence product direction and roadmap priorities
Facilitate design workshops and collaborative sessions that build shared understanding of user needs and drive alignment across cross-functional stakeholders with competing priorities
Partner with product and engineering to scope design work, define realistic timelines, and establish success criteria for initiatives
Leverage data and analytics to validate design decisions and iteratively improve experiences through A/B testing, experimentation, and performance monitoring
Design for AI-driven teaching and learning experiences in collaboration with learning scientists, considering ethical implications, pedagogical effectiveness, and responsible AI principles