UX Lead

Neighborly Software builds cloud-based technology that helps government agencies and community organizations administer and distribute funding for programs including housing, economic and community development, disaster recovery, home energy rebates, and Housing Choice Vouchers.

Its mission is centered around helping communities deliver essential services more effectively to the people who depend on them.

About the Role

Neighborly Software is hiring its first dedicated UX Lead, giving you the opportunity to establish the company's UX practice from the ground up.

This is a hands-on individual contributor position rather than a people-management role. You'll own how the platform looks, feels, and works, while setting the UX standards used across product, engineering, and QA.

You'll build the foundations of the design practice, including a design system, reusable component library, personas, user journeys, accessibility standards, responsive-design principles, and prototyping practices.

The goal is straightforward: make complex, high-stakes government software dramatically easier to use.

What You'll Do

Build the Design System

• Create and own a scalable design system and reusable component library.
• Establish interaction patterns and clear usage guidelines.
• Develop and maintain a consistent product style guide.
• Work with design tokens and reusable components.
• Drive adoption of the design system across product and engineering.
• Review implementation quality and maintain UX standards across the platform.

Simplify Complex Experiences

• Redesign core workflows to reduce unnecessary steps and cognitive load.
• Modernize the platform's UI while improving usability and consistency.
• Turn recurring customer pain points into validated product improvements.
• Create clearer paths, status indicators, and feedback throughout complex workflows.
• Identify opportunities to reuse functionality across different personas and program types.
• Improve experiences incrementally rather than relying on large redesigns.

Research & Understand Users

• Conduct user research directly with customers.
• Join client calls and discovery sessions alongside Product Managers.
• Create and maintain personas and user journeys.
• Translate research findings into actionable design decisions.
• Facilitate discovery workshops, journey-mapping sessions, design reviews, and prioritization exercises.
• Represent the user's perspective throughout product development.

Prototype & Collaborate

• Establish prototyping standards across the product organization.
• Create interactive prototypes before solutions reach engineering.
• Partner closely with Product, Engineering, and QA.
• Guide implementation fidelity and component reuse.
• Help ensure shipped experiences accurately reflect design intent.
• Collaborate with engineering around front-end performance and perceived speed.

Measure UX Impact

Neighborly wants UX improvements to produce measurable outcomes rather than simply better-looking interfaces.

You'll use product analytics and behavioral data to:

• Identify friction within existing workflows.
• Measure task completion.
• Track time on task.
• Monitor error rates.
• Analyze support volume.
• Validate whether UX changes actually improve the customer experience.

Tools may include platforms such as Pendo for product analytics and New Relic for performance monitoring.

What They're Looking For

• 5+ years of UX/UI Design experience.
• Experience working as a Lead Designer or senior-most designer on a digital product.
• Portfolio demonstrating ownership of complex, workflow-heavy applications.
• Experience building a design system and component library from the ground up.
• Advanced experience with modern design and prototyping tools such as Figma.
• Experience with design tokens and interactive prototypes.
• Strong understanding of responsive product design.
• Experience conducting user research.
• Ability to translate research into personas, journeys, and product decisions.
• Experience facilitating workshops and design reviews.
• Experience using product analytics to inform UX decisions.
• Strong communication and presentation skills.
• Ability to influence Product, Engineering, and QA without direct authority.
• Familiarity with HTML, CSS, and component-based front-end frameworks.
• Bachelor's degree in Design, HCI, or a related discipline, or equivalent practical experience.

Accessibility

Accessibility is an important part of this role rather than an afterthought.

You'll help establish WCAG-based accessibility standards, incorporate accessible patterns into the design system, and work with other teams to define how accessibility is validated before product releases.

Experience with WCAG 2.1 AA or later is required.

Accessibility certifications such as CPACC or WAS are considered a plus.

AI in the Design Workflow

Neighborly Software is also looking for a UX Lead comfortable incorporating AI tools into everyday design and research work.

AI may be used for areas including:

• Research synthesis
• Content drafting
• Rapid concept generation
• Design exploration

The role therefore combines traditional UX leadership and research skills with an increasingly AI-assisted product-design workflow.

First-Year Goals

During your first year, you'll be expected to establish much of Neighborly's UX foundation.

Key outcomes include:

• Launching a documented design system and component library.
• Establishing a consistent product style guide.
• Introducing accessibility and responsive-design standards.
• Creating documented personas and user journeys.
• Establishing a repeatable prototyping practice.
• Driving adoption of UX standards across Product and Engineering.
• Delivering measurable friction reduction across at least two high-traffic workflows.

Nice to Have

Additional relevant experience includes:

• Working as the first or founding designer at a company.
• GovTech or public-sector software.
• Affordable housing or community-development platforms.
• Grant-management software.
• Enterprise or B2B SaaS.
• Complex permissions and administrative workflows.
• Designing products serving multiple personas.
• External customer portals.
• Product-performance monitoring tools.
• Startup environments.

Benefits

Neighborly Software offers:

• Medical, dental, and vision plan options.
• Company-paid short-term disability and life insurance.
• 401(k) with employer matching and immediate vesting.
• 5 weeks of PTO.
• 9 paid holidays.
• 3 volunteer days per year.