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Prosper Marketplace, a leading fintech company and the first peer-to-peer lending platform in the US, is seeking a Director of User Experience to lead and shape the strategic vision for the entire UX organization.
In this role, you will serve as the primary visionary and operational leader for UX, responsible for shaping design strategy, optimizing DesignOps, integrating emerging technologies like AI, and ensuring seamless cross-functional alignment. You will blend high-level organizational leadership with hands-on management to ensure teams deliver desirable, viable, and feasible user experiences that connect with the company's brand identity and drive product initiatives forward.
Key responsibilities include:
**Team Leadership & Cross-Team Oversight**
- Directly manage, mentor, and foster the professional growth of UX Managers, ensuring they understand quarterly objectives, maintain aligned workflows, and have necessary resources.
- Lead hiring decisions and organizational design for management-level UX roles.
- Conduct regular 1:1s with direct reports, facilitate quarterly skip-level meetings with individual contributors, and cultivate a healthy, inclusive, high-performing design culture.
**UX Strategy & Vision**
- Own, develop, and execute long-term strategic plans for the entire UX organization.
- Establish and champion a clear vision for AI utilization within product experience, identifying opportunities to enhance user journeys while ensuring features remain user-centric, ethical, and aligned with product priorities.
- Ensure all product experiences are highly usable, business-viable, and technically feasible while connecting to core brand identity.
- Partner with cross-functional stakeholders to translate user needs and business objectives into impactful, prioritized UX projects.
**DesignOps & Process Optimization**
- Maintain accountability for all systems, tools, and processes across the UX organization, continually optimizing workflows to amplify team impact at scale.
- Spearhead evaluation, adoption, and integration of AI tools into daily UX processes, empowering teams to streamline workflows and accelerate research and design output.
- Establish and facilitate regular cross-team collaboration exercises including UX critiques, design reviews, and retrospectives.
- Ensure disparate UX teams collaborate effectively, maintain alignment, and work toward unified objectives without silos.
**Cross-Functional Alignment & Leadership**
- Act as primary UX liaison with leaders across Product, Engineering, Customer Experience, and other key departments.
- Regularly sync with cross-functional leaders to identify project dependencies, clear developmental roadblocks, and establish collaborative working processes.
- Design and lead cross-departmental alignment workshops to ensure shared understanding of product vision and UX priorities.
**Budgeting & Resource Planning**
- Collaborate with UX Managers and the VP to strategically allocate staffing and tools across various UX teams.
- Establish and manage the cross-team UX budget, ensuring appropriate funding for team-building, professional development, industry recognition, and travel.
Proper offers a hybrid work environment (2 days/week in SF office), competitive salary with 401(k) match (5%), flexible time off, paid parental leave, annual wellness allowance, comprehensive health coverage, Udemy access, childcare assistance, and pet insurance.
**Requirements:**
- 8-10+ years in UX Design, Product Design, or related fields
- 3-5+ years in a leadership role managing other managers
- Bachelor's degree
- Experience directly managing and integrating adjacent design disciplines, specifically UX Research and UX Writing/Content Design
- Strong background in DesignOps, scaling design teams, and optimizing cross-functional product development processes
- Forward-thinking approach to emerging tech with proven experience or strong capability in integrating AI into both design workflows and product features
- Demonstrated ability to influence executive stakeholders, align design strategy with business goals, and lead collaborative workshops
