Senior Manager User Experience

As a Principal Product Designer (Team Lead) at Optum Payment Integrity, you will lead a team of UX team members to deliver high-quality, user-centered experiences across complex, data-driven products. Your role will involve blending people leadership, design execution, and cross-functional alignment to ensure that work is well-scoped, consistently delivered, and aligned to both user needs and business outcomes. Operating in a player-coach capacity, you will guide the team, step into critical work when needed, and elevate overall design quality and team effectiveness. Additionally, you will bring AI fluency to help the team adopt modern tools to accelerate delivery, improve insight generation, and streamline workflows. Primary Responsibilities: - Ensure high-quality execution across all design work, including user flows, interactions, UI patterns, and system behaviors. - Provide hands-on design support for complex, high-risk, or ambiguous work. - Guide teams in breaking down work into clear, actionable deliverables. - Ensure design outputs are development-ready with clear specifications, assets, and acceptance criteria. - Maintain a solid focus on usability, accessibility, and experience consistency. - Guide team members in adopting AI responsibly and effectively within their day-to-day work. Cross-Functional Collaboration: - Serve as a central point of coordination across Product, Engineering, and Design. - Align teams on scope, priorities, timelines, and dependencies. - Facilitate design reviews, working sessions, and cross-team critiques. - Proactively identify and resolve gaps, blockers, and misalignment. - Communicate design decisions and rationale effectively to stakeholders. Required Qualifications: - 11+ years of experience in Product Design, UX, Interaction Design, or related disciplines. - 2+ years of direct people management or design team leadership. - Solid visual and interaction design skills, including layout, hierarchy, and usability. - Proven experience leading design delivery within cross-functional product teams. Preferred Qualifications: - Experience in enterprise or regulated domains, such as healthcare, fintech, or analytics platforms. - Experience working with and scaling design systems. - Familiarity with Agile, PI planning, or similar delivery models. - Familiarity with accessibility standards (WCAG). - Background in UX research, usability testing, or data-informed design practices. Tools & Skills: - Design & Collaboration: Figma, Miro, Mural for synthesis and workshops. - Collaboration tools: Teams, Confluence, SharePoint. - Collaboration & Communication: Solid communication, facilitation, and stakeholder management skills across cross-functional teams. - Ability to bring clarity and structure in ambiguous or rapidly evolving environments. - Proven experience partnering closely with Product and Engineering leadership. - AI & Modern Tools: Familiarity with AI-assisted design, research, and productivity tools. UnitedHealth Group's mission is to help people live healthier lives and make the health system work better for everyone. The company is committed to mitigating its impact on the environment and delivering equitable care that addresses health disparities and improves health outcomes for all. As a Principal Product Designer (Team Lead) at Optum Payment Integrity, you will lead a team of UX team members to deliver high-quality, user-centered experiences across complex, data-driven products. Your role will involve blending people leadership, design execution, and cross-functional alignment to ensure that work is well-scoped, consistently delivered, and aligned to both user needs and business outcomes. Operating in a player-coach capacity, you will guide the team, step into critical work when needed, and elevate overall design quality and team effectiveness. Additionally, you will bring AI fluency to help the team adopt modern tools to accelerate delivery, improve insight generation, and streamline workflows. Primary Responsibilities: - Ensure high-quality execution across all design work, including user flows, interactions, UI patterns, and system behaviors. - Provide hands-on design support for complex, high-risk, or ambiguous work. - Guide teams in breaking down work into clear, actionable deliverables. - Ensure design outputs are development-ready with clear specifications, assets, and acceptance criteria. - Maintain a solid focus on usability, accessibility, and experience consistency. - Guide team members in adopting AI responsibly and effectively within their day-to-day work. Cross-Functional Collaboration: - Serve as a central point of coordination across Product, Engineering, and Design. - Align teams on scope, priorities, timelines, and dependencies. - Facilitate design reviews, working sessions, and cross-team critiques. - Proactively identify and resolve gaps, blockers, and misalignment. - Communicate design decisions and rationale effe