C2C Hiring for Lead UX Designer Columbus, OH

Lead UX Designer
Columbus, OH
Contract

Department: Design / User Experience
Experience: 8–12+ years in UX/Product Design, including 3+ years
leading legacy or mainframe application modernization initiatives in
the Banking domain.
About the Role
We are seeking a Lead UX Designer to spearhead the transformation of
complex, mission-critical mainframe applications into intuitive,
scalable, and intelligent digital experiences.
This role goes beyond designing modern interfaces—it requires
reimagining decades-old business processes, simplifying highly complex
workflows, and enabling organizations to transition from legacy
green-screen systems to modern, user-centered applications.
You will partner with Product Managers, Business Analysts, Architects,
Engineers, and business stakeholders to define the UX strategy for
modernization initiatives while mentoring designers and driving design
excellence across multiple workstreams.
The ideal candidate combines strong UX leadership, enterprise design
expertise, systems thinking, and a deep understanding of legacy
application modernization. Experience designing data-intensive
enterprise applications and leveraging AI-enabled capabilities to
improve user productivity is highly desirable.
Key Responsibilities

Enterprise Discovery & Legacy Analysis
• Collaborate with Product, Engineering, Architects, and Business
stakeholders to understand business objectives, user needs, and
modernization goals.
• Analyze legacy applications, including 3270/green-screen interfaces,
COBOL/CICS transactions, business rules, workflows, and data models to
identify modernization opportunities.
• Conduct user interviews, contextual inquiries, workflow
observations, and stakeholder workshops to uncover usability
challenges and business pain points.
• Facilitate Design Thinking workshops, journey-mapping sessions, and
co-creation activities to align stakeholders on product vision and
priorities.
• Translate business and technical requirements into actionable UX
strategies and design opportunities.
UX Strategy & Experience Design
• Define UX strategy and experience vision for enterprise
modernization programs.
• Create personas, empathy maps, customer journeys, task flows,
service blueprints, and information architecture that inform product
direction.
• Simplify complex enterprise workflows into intuitive, task-oriented
digital experiences.
• Design enterprise dashboards, reporting solutions, analytics, search
experiences, workflow management, and decision-support interfaces.
• Identify opportunities to incorporate AI-powered experiences such as
intelligent search, workflow automation, recommendations,
conversational interfaces, and predictive insights where they provide
measurable business value.
UX Design & Prototyping
• Produce wireframes, user flows, interaction models, low- and
high-fidelity prototypes, and production-ready UI specifications.
• Design responsive experiences optimized for desktop, tablet, and
mobile platforms.
• Collaborate closely with Engineering to ensure accurate
implementation of UX designs.
• Develop and maintain interaction standards, reusable patterns, and
enterprise design system components.
• Create comprehensive design documentation and implementation guidelines.

Research, Validation & Continuous Improvement
• Plan and conduct usability testing, heuristic evaluations,
accessibility reviews, and prototype validation sessions.
• Analyze user feedback, behavioral data, and research findings to
continuously improve user experiences.
• Define UX success metrics and leverage analytics to measure product
effectiveness and adoption.
• Advocate for evidence-based design decisions throughout the product lifecycle.

Accessibility & Design Quality
• Champion inclusive design and accessibility across all digital products.
• Ensure compliance with WCAG 2.1 AA (or higher) accessibility standards.
• Collaborate with Engineering to validate accessibility
implementation and resolve usability issues.
• Establish UX quality standards and conduct design reviews to ensure
consistency across modernization initiatives.

Leadership & Collaboration
• Lead end-to-end UX activities across multiple modernization workstreams.
• Mentor and guide UX designers, fostering a culture of collaboration,
innovation, and continuous learning.
• Partner with Product Managers, Architects, Engineers, Business
Analysts, and QA teams throughout the Agile delivery lifecycle.
• Present design concepts, research findings, and strategic
recommendations to executive leadership and key stakeholders.
• Balance user needs, technical feasibility, business objectives, and
delivery timelines to drive informed design decisions.
• Promote UX best practices and contribute to the evolution of
enterprise design maturity.

Required Skills & Experience
• 8+ years of professional UX/Product Design experience, including
hands-on experience modernizing enterprise or legacy applications in
the banking industry
• Demonstrated success leading UX initiatives for complex enterprise
modernization programs.
• Strong expertise in UX research, Design Thinking, information
architecture, interaction design, and usability testing.
• Proven experience designing complex, data-intensive enterprise
applications, dashboards, analytics platforms, and workflow management
systems.
• Strong understanding of enterprise application architecture,
business process analysis, and workflow optimization.
• Experience designing within enterprise design systems and creating
reusable UX patterns.
• Proficiency in Figma, FigJam, Sketch, Miro Photoshop, or equivalent
design tools.
• Solid understanding of responsive design, accessibility standards
(WCAG), and inclusive design principles.
• Experience working within Agile, Scrum, Lean UX, and Dual-Track
Agile methodologies.
• Excellent communication, facilitation, and stakeholder management
skills with the ability to influence technical and business audiences.
• Demonstrated leadership experience managing designers, coordinating
cross-functional teams, and driving successful project delivery.
Preferred Qualifications
• Experience modernizing mainframe applications, including COBOL,
CICS, IMS, DB2, AS/400, or 3270 environments.
• Experience designing AI-powered enterprise applications,
conversational interfaces, workflow automation, or intelligent
decision-support systems.
• Familiarity with cloud migration and digital transformation initiatives.
• Experience establishing, scaling, or governing enterprise design systems.
• Knowledge of front-end technologies (HTML, CSS, JavaScript) and
component-based UI frameworks.
• Experience working in highly regulated industries such as Financial
Services, Healthcare, Insurance, Government, or Manufacturing.

Education
Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Human-Computer Interaction, Product
Design, Interaction Design, Human Factors, Computer Science,
Psychology, or a related field (or equivalent professional
experience).