Role OverviewThe UX Lead is the first dedicated user experience role at Neighborly Software. Our users - government agency staff, nonprofit administrators, contractors, and the residents and applicants they serve - rely on the platform to run complex, high-stakes programs where clarity matters. The UX Lead owns how that platform looks, feels, and flows.
This is a founding, individual-contributor role with no direct reports. You will build the design practice from the ground up - a design system and reusable component library, documented personas and user journeys, a standard style guide, and accessibility and responsive design as standing norms - while remaining hands-on with the design work itself. Because the role carries no team, it leads through influence: setting a direction that product managers, engineers, and QA choose to follow because the thinking is sound and the work makes theirs better.
Beyond producing design artifacts, you will set standards and hold the organization to them, guiding product, engineering, and QA toward a simpler, lower-friction experience. Success is measured in friction removed: fewer clicks, clearer workflows, visible status and feedback, and interfaces that embrace a "don't make me think" philosophy. This is an opportunity to take the platform into its next phase and align the experience with where the company is headed.
Core Attributes:- Owner - treats the platform experience as their responsibility end to end, and holds the standard when it would be easier to let it slide.
- Systems thinker - sees the reusable pattern behind the one-off request and builds for reuse.
- Simplifier - instinctively removes steps, clicks, and cognitive load.
- Voice of the customer - advocates for the user in rooms where the user is not present, grounded in research rather than opinion.
- Leads without a team - earns influence through credibility, clarity, and collaboration rather than reporting lines.
- Pragmatic builder - ships improvements incrementally rather than waiting on a perfect, all-at-once redesign.
Key Responsibilities:Design System and Standards- Build and own a design system - a reusable component library, interaction patterns, and usage guidance that product, engineering, and QA work from.
- Establish and maintain a style guide for consistent branding across the platform, aligned with company positioning and messaging.
- Establish accessibility as an organizational norm - set WCAG-based standards, build accessible patterns into the design system, and define how compliance is validated before release.
- Establish responsive design as an organizational norm so the platform behaves predictably across desktop, tablet, and mobile.
- Hold the organization accountable to these standards, reviewing work in progress and partnering with product and engineering leadership when the bar isn't met.
Experience Design and Simplification- Redesign core workflows to reduce friction - fewer clicks, clearer paths, and meaningful status and feedback.
- Modernize and simplify the interface, both visually and in how users interact with it.
- Guide user experience solutioning for known pain points, turning recurring customer complaints into designed, validated solutions.
- Assess core functionality for reuse across personas and program types - for example, extending an existing capability into a contractor portal - without fragmenting the product.
Research, Personas, and Voice of the Customer- Build and document personas and user journeys, and keep them current as a shared reference for product, engineering, marketing, and sales.
- Join client calls and discovery sessions with product managers to gather firsthand feedback and translate it into design direction.
- Lead workshops - discovery sessions, journey mapping, design reviews, and prioritization exercises - with internal teams and customers.
Prototyping and Cross-Functional Partnership- Establish prototyping norms and a shared framework with the product team so concepts are tested visually before reaching engineering.
- Guide engineering and QA on implementation fidelity, component reuse, and front-end quality, so what ships matches what was designed.
- Partner with engineering on front-end performance and observability (for example New Relic), treating perceived speed as a design concern.
Measurement- Use product analytics (for example Pendo) to understand user behavior, identify friction points, and validate whether design changes improved outcomes.
- Define and track experience metrics - task completion, time on task, error rates, support volume - and report progress to leadership.
- Performs other duties as required.
First-Year Outcomes:- A documented design system and component library in active use by product and engineering.
- A published style guide, with consistent branding applied across the platform's primary modules.
- Accessibility and responsive design standards defined and built into the design and QA process.
- Documented personas and user journeys adopted as shared reference across product, engineering, marketing, and sales.
- A working prototyping practice established with the product management team.
- Measurable friction reduction in at least two high-traffic workflows, evidenced by analytics.
Required Qualifications:- Bachelor's degree in Design, Human-Computer Interaction, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
- 5+ years of user experience and user interface design experience, including time as the lead or senior-most designer on a product or platform.
- A portfolio demonstrating end-to-end ownership of complex, workflow-heavy applications - not solely marketing sites or consumer apps.
- Demonstrated experience building a design system and component library from the ground up and driving its adoption.
- Hands-on expertise with modern design and prototyping tools (for example Figma), including component libraries, design tokens, and interactive prototypes.
- Working knowledge of accessibility standards (WCAG 2.1 AA or later) and experience designing and validating accessible interfaces.
- Demonstrated experience delivering responsive design across desktop, tablet, and mobile.
- Direct experience conducting user research and synthesizing findings into personas, journeys, and design decisions.
- Experience facilitating workshops and design reviews with cross-functional and customer audiences.
- Demonstrated ability to lead as an individual contributor - influencing engineering, QA, and product partners, and holding a standard across teams that don't report to you.
- Experience with product analytics tools and using behavioral data to inform design decisions.
- Working fluency with AI tools applied to design and research - synthesis, content drafting, and rapid concept generation.
- Excellent communication and presentation skills, including explaining design rationale to executives, engineers, and customers.
- Enough familiarity with HTML, CSS, and component-based front-end frameworks to have productive technical conversations with engineers.
Preferred Qualifications:- Experience as the first or founding design hire, establishing a UX practice where none previously existed.
- Experience in govtech, public sector, affordable housing, community development, or grant management software.
- Experience designing for multiple distinct personas within a single platform, including external-facing portals.
- Experience with enterprise or B2B SaaS platforms carrying configuration, permissions, and administrative complexity.
- Familiarity with performance monitoring and observability tools (for example New Relic).
- Accessibility certification (for example CPACC or WAS).
Physical Requirements:- Prolonged periods of sitting at a desk and working on a computer.
- Must be able to lift up to 15 pounds at times.
Why This Role MattersNeighborly's clients run some of the highest-stakes programs in the country - disaster recovery for communities rebuilding after catastrophic events, energy programs that determine whether funding reaches the families who need it, and affordable housing initiatives that shape who can
Why You'll Love Working Here:- Comprehensive Benefits - Medical, Dental, Vision plan options and Company-Paid Short-Term Disability and Life Insurance
- 401K Contributions - Generous employer match with immediate vesting
- Generous Time Off - 5 weeks of PTO, 9 paid holidays, and 3 days of volunteer time off each year
