Principal UX/CX Designer - Multiple Locations

Requisition Number: 2383103
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.
The Enterprise Digital Product Office (EDPO) at Optum is a centralized organization focused on accelerating digital transformation across the enterprise. The team partners across business, technology, and operations to design, build, and scale product-centric solutions that improve customer experiences, optimize operational workflows, and deliver measurable business outcomes. The team drives consistency in product strategy, agile delivery, and design practices, enabling teams to operate with greater speed, clarity, and impact. By aligning cross-functional stakeholders and leveraging modern technologies, including cloud platforms, data, and AI, the organization supports the development of scalable, user-centered solutions that help advance Optum's mission to build a more effective and equitable health care system.
As a Principal UX/CX Designer, you'll define the experience strategy for complex products while remaining deeply involved in the hands-on design work that brings those experiences to life. You'll partner with leaders across product, engineering, research, and business to solve the organization's most challenging design problems, guide other designers, and influence product direction through both strategic thinking and exceptional design craft.
This role is ideal for a designer who enjoys shaping vision while staying close to the work, leading through influence, mentoring others, and raising the quality of design across the organization.
Strategic focus: 35% strategic, 65% tactical
This position is a hybrid role.
Primary Responsibilities:

• Partner with the Enterprise digital product team on optum.com, and other Optum sites as needed
• Create user flows, wireframes, journey maps, and information architecture artifacts
• Explore emerging opportunities in the digital healthcare space, evaluate and evangelize as needed
• Interpret insights (analytics, VoC, market feedback etc.) to anticipate user needs and proactively design innovative solutions
• Drive discovery activities, synthesize research and analytics, and translate insights into innovative, user-centered product experiences
• Build alignment across cross-functional teams by clearly communicating design rationale, facilitating discussions, and influencing strategic product decisions
• Continually advocate for the user and ensure there is a shared understanding of the problems we are solving (Be the voice of the user in prioritization, new products and features)
• Partner with research and content teams to ensure alignment across user needs, messaging, and experience design
• Lead discussion and critique of work, solicit requirements from stakeholders, and be a key partner in helping deliver on our mission
• Serve as a key resource on complex and/or critical issues
• Actively engage in the team culture and contribute to learning and presentation opportunities across the design organization
• Lead by example through exceptional design execution while establishing a high bar for quality, craft, and attention to detail
• Anticipate customer needs and proactively develop solutions
• Provide design recommendations based on technical feasibility, usability findings, A11y, legal and design best practices
• Maintain a design culture of simple, seamless, and intuitive user experiences
• Review work performed by others and provide recommendations for improvement
• Authorize deviations from current standards based on analytics or evidence-based observations
• Advance the design system, reusable patterns, and design best practices to improve consistency, efficiency, and scalability across products
• Motivate and inspire other team members
• Lead UX strategy across large-scale journeys, platforms, or ecosystems
• Own and evolve information architecture, navigation models, and site structures
• Facilitate alignment across cross-functional teams to define and deliver cohesive end-to-end experiences
• Translate research, data, and business needs into clear experience strategies and design direction
• Partner closely with engineering throughout implementation to ensure the final product reflects the intended experience through ongoing design reviews and quality assurance
• Leverage AI-enabled tools responsibly to accelerate research, ideation, documentation, and design workflows while identifying new opportunities to improve team effectiveness and product experiences
• Elevate experience quality through critique, coaching, and structured design approaches
• Navigate ambiguity and structure complex problem spaces into clear, actionable solutions
• 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 regards 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:

• Undergraduate degree or equivalent experience
• 10+ years of hands-on experience with UX design, including information architecture and journey design
• 10+ years of experience working with multiple teams and competing priorities
• 10+ years of experience incorporating user feedback in the design process (user research, NPS, Voice of the customer)
• 10+ years of experience with prominent industry design tools (Figma, Figjam, Figma Make, Adobe Creative Suite)
• 5+ years of experience working in cross functional teams
• 5+ years of experience building and/or utilizing personas to inform design decisions
• 5+ years of experience presenting to stakeholders
• Proven experience leading UX strategy across complex or large-scale digital experiences
• Solid expertise in information architecture, navigation systems, and experience frameworks
• Demonstrated ability to influence stakeholders and drive alignment across teams
• Demonstrated solid communication, facilitation, and storytelling skills, including presenting to senior leadership

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience working with Adobe Experience Manager (AEM)
• Experience working with Agile teams including planning to support roadmaps, capacity, and sprint planning
• Experience working in a large corporate environment
• Experience designing accessible experiences that align with WCAG 2.1AA requirements
• Experience using AI-enabled tools to improve research, design exploration, documentation, or product design workflows
• Healthcare experience. Experience designing products in similarly complex or regulated industries including insurance, financial services, retail, telecommunications, life sciences, pharmaceuticals, or enterprise software
• Proven bias toward action and innovative big-picture thinking while improving processes and optimizing operations
• Proven willingness to learn, pivot and grow
• Proven track record of driving change in a large, complex matrixed environment even amid ambiguous circumstances
• Proven excellent resource management skills
• Proven ability to foster collaboration and build relationships with individuals on and outside of your direct team
• Proven ability to drive alignment with team members and business leaders across all initiative phases, including achieving clarity on scope and deliverables

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.