Senior Principal UX/CX Designer

Optum is a global organization that delivers care, aided by technology to help millions of people live healthier lives. The work you do with our team will directly improve health outcomes by connecting people with the care, pharmacy benefits, data and resources they need to feel their best. Here, you will find a culture guided by inclusion, talented peers, comprehensive benefits and career development opportunities. Come make an impact on the communities we serve as you help us advance health optimization on a global scale. Join us to start Caring. Connecting. Growing together.

We are seeking a visionary Director of User Experience to lead platform-level UX strategy for the Global Infrastructure & Cloud Services organization. This role will shape the experience layer of a large-scale enterprise platform used by our engineering community and will directly influence platform adoption, productivity, and modernization outcomes.

This is a high-impact leadership role responsible for defining and scaling UX capability across multiple product teams while establishing unified design standards, governance, and workflow architecture.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Own and define the end-to-end UX vision for the Engineering Platform aligned to 2026 transformation goals
• Establish and scale a unified design system and governance model across multiple product teams
• Drive platform-wide information architecture and workflow integration strategy
• Partner with senior Product and Architecture and Business leaders to influence roadmap and investment decisions
• Design cohesive cross-product user journeys that reduce friction and cognitive load
• Embed research-driven design practices and measurable UX success metrics
• Build and mentor UX capability across distributed and cross-functional teams
• Represent UX strategy in executive forums and leadership discussions 
• Impact & Outcomes
  • Improve engineering productivity through streamlined workflows and reduced friction
  • Increase adoption and engagement across platform capabilities
  • Protect modernization investments by preventing cross-team rework
  • Establish scalable UX governance to avoid long-term experience debt
  • Elevate UX maturity within the Engineering Platform organization
• Comply with the terms and conditions of the employment contract, company policies and procedures, and any and all directives (such as, but not limited to, transfer and/or re-assignment to different work locations, change in teams and/or work shifts, policies in regard to flexibility of work benefits and/or work environment, alternative work arrangements, and other decisions that may arise due to the changing business environment). The Company may adopt, vary or rescind these policies and directives in its absolute discretion and without any limitation (implied or otherwise) on its ability to do so

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in User Experience, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Design, Information Architecture,  or related field
• 12+ years of progressive UX experience with at least 5+ years in leadership or strategic roles
• Experience establishing and scaling enterprise design systems
• Experience building and mentoring high-performing UX teams
• Demonstrated success leading UX for complex enterprise platforms or ecosystems
• Solid expertise in workflow architecture, system thinking, and usability strategy
• Proven ability to influence senior stakeholders and drive cross-functional alignment
• Deep understanding of accessibility standards (WCAG/508) and inclusive design
• Solid executive communication and storytelling skills

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience working in global enterprise environments
• Experience designing complex enterprise platforms or developer-facing systems
• Exposure to product analytics and data-driven UX optimization
• Active participation in UX communities, conferences, or thought leadership

At UnitedHealth Group, our mission is to help people live healthier lives and make the health system work better for everyone. We believe everyone - of every race, gender, sexuality, age, location and income - deserves the opportunity to live their healthiest life. Today, however, there are still far too many barriers to good health which are disproportionately experienced by people of color, historically marginalized groups and those with lower incomes. We are committed to mitigating our impact on the environment and enabling and delivering equitable care that addresses health disparities and improves health outcomes - an enterprise priority reflected in our mission.