UX Design Lead

Rotary International•Evanston, IL

5h•Hybrid

About The Position

The UX Design Lead shapes the experiences of one or more products in Rotary’s suite, using a deep understanding of users to improve existing products and design new ones. The role guides the usability, accessibility, and efficacy of supported products and brings an entrepreneurial, proactive, and innovative approach to product design. This self-starting visual designer will elevate Rotary products’ aesthetics and usability and help set standards for visual and interaction design across digital products. The role calls for strong visual craft, including color, typography, layout, iconography, and motion, grounded in user understanding and carried from research and concept through polished execution. The UX Design Lead designs for global audiences with accessibility built in, identifies opportunities for scalable visual systems, and collaborates with end-users and cross-functional teams through critique, storytelling, and partnership. The position is hybrid and fully flexible, with work at Rotary’s world headquarters in Evanston, Illinois, from once per month to several times a week. Managers determine specific office days based on business requirements. Employees must live within reasonable daily commuting distance of Evanston. Rotary does not provide visa sponsorship or relocation assistance.

Requirements

6–8+ years of professional experience in visual or product design for consumer or SaaS applications.
A portfolio demonstrating an end-to-end design process, including research, journeys, wireframes, and prototypes, as well as strong visual craft. Applications will not be considered without a portfolio.
B.S., M.S., or B.F.A. in Communication Design, Graphic Design, Visual Design, Interaction Design, or a related field, or equivalent experience.
Demonstrable expertise in color theory, typography, layout and grid systems, iconography, and motion design.
Experience conducting and synthesizing user research and validating design decisions through usability and A/B testing.
Advanced fluency in Figma, including component architecture, variables, styles, and design tokens.
Experience with prototyping tools such as Figma prototyping, Framer, Protopie, or After Effects for high-fidelity motion and interaction design.
Proven experience designing and scaling a visual design system, including defining primitive, semantic, and component-level tokens for color, typography, spacing, elevation, and motion, and maintaining component and pattern libraries.
Experience designing UI for global audiences, with a strong grasp of accessibility as a visual design discipline, including WCAG 2.1/2.2 AA+, contrast, legibility, scalable type, and motion reduction.
Understanding of localization considerations such as right-to-left layouts and variable text expansion.
Working knowledge of HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript sufficient to understand implementation constraints and collaborate with engineers on design-to-code visual fidelity.
Ability to demonstrate exceptional visual craft and design storytelling.
Ability to set a high visual quality bar across typography, color, spacing, iconography, and motion.
Ability to translate research insights and user needs into a cohesive visual language across product surfaces.
Ability to collaborate cross-functionally and mentor other designers.
Ability to communicate and present design rationale to stakeholders at all levels.

Nice To Haves

Familiarity with AI-assisted design or generative tools for exploration and rapid visual iteration.
An eye for emerging visual and interaction trends.

Responsibilities

Help mature Rotary’s visual design system, including primitive, semantic, and component-level token architecture and reusable, on-brand web and mobile components and patterns.
Champion a high aesthetic bar across the design organization and help other designers develop their visual craft through feedback and example.
Stay current on visual and motion design trends and bring fresh perspectives into product design, including considerations about AI across the UX lifecycle.
Balance Rotary’s brand identity with product UI needs to deliver consistent, beautiful, usable, and accessible experiences at scale.
Lead end-to-end design work, from research, personas, journeys, wireframes, and prototypes through high-fidelity visual execution.
Conduct research, including usability and A/B testing, to validate design solutions and guide data-informed visual and interaction refinements.
Pair with UX engineers and product managers to turn Rotary’s visual language into working, pixel-faithful artifacts.
Partner with engineering to ensure design tokens and visual details are implemented and adopted consistently across product surfaces.
Collaborate with product, engineering, research, brand, end-users, and cross-functional teams to deliver polished, well-implemented work.
Present design rationale persuasively to stakeholders, grounding it in research and visual and brand principles.
Mentor designers and provide constructive critique.
Lead and prioritize design work across multiple teams and projects.