Product Design Senior Lead

Sidley Austin LLP (IL LLP); Chicago (IL); Hybrid; USD 141,000 - 211,000; Full time

Job summary

Sidley Austin LLP seeks a Product Design Senior Lead to drive AI-enabled, enterprise-grade product design across complex legal platforms. You will translate business strategy into actionable direction, partner with Product Management and Engineering, and set standards for UX, UI, and information architecture.

The role requires a minimum of 8 years in product design, a strong portfolio, and proven leadership in discovery, prototyping, and delivery.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience leading product design initiatives and teams through discovery, definition, prototyping, delivery, and iteration.
• Experience designing complex enterprise products, workflows, or platforms with multiple personas and rules.
• Ability to analyze ambiguous problems, develop domain knowledge, and translate findings into solutions.
• Experience partnering with Product Management, Engineering, and business stakeholders.
• Experience applying AI-enabled tools to product design, research, or development.
• Strong communication and influence skills to articulate rationale and tradeoffs.

Responsibilities

• Lead discovery and problem framing with stakeholders to translate findings into actionable product direction.
• Develop understanding of complex business processes and prioritize opportunities by business and user needs.
• Model end-to-end workflows including roles, handoffs, rules, and information dependencies.
• Translate strategy into coherent product concepts, outcomes, and experiences.
• Partner with PM and Engineering to shape priorities, roadmaps, requirements, and delivery decisions.
• Lead iterative prototyping and evaluation of concepts, testing feasibility and reducing risk.
• Drive product design through delivery, maintaining high standards for thinking, interaction, information architecture, and visuals.
• Define measures of success and use research, usability testing, analytics, and feedback to inform decisions.
• Provide guidance to Product Design team and communicate direction to stakeholders.

Skills

Product design

UX design

AI-enabled design

Stakeholder communication

Portfolio

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Design / HCI / Product Management

Tools

AI prototyping tools

Job description

The Product Design Senior Lead leads product design for complex, AI-enabled legal products and platforms, translating business needs and product strategy into clear product direction and high-quality user experiences. This role leads work from discovery and problem framing through product definition, prototyping, delivery, and iteration, partnering closely with Product Management, Engineering, and business stakeholders to address complex workflows and deliver meaningful business and user outcomes. The Senior Lead also establishes high standards for UX and UI quality, and advances AI-enabled approaches that improve the speed and effectiveness of product discovery, validation, and delivery.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Lead discovery and problem framing with stakeholders to understand business processes, user needs, constraints, decision points, and opportunities and translate findings into actionable product direction.
• Develop deep understanding of complex business domains and workflows to identify root problems, challenge assumptions, and prioritize opportunities based on business and user needs.
• Model complex systems and end-to-end workflows, including roles, handoffs, business rules, exceptions, dependencies, information architecture, and decision points, to inform effective product solutions.
• Translate product strategy and ambiguous business problems into product concepts, desired outcomes, priorities, and coherent end-to-end experiences.
• Partner with Product Management and Engineering to shape product priorities, roadmaps, requirements, tradeoffs, and delivery decisions within established product and business strategy.
• Lead iterative prototyping and evaluation of product concepts, partnering with Engineering to test assumptions, assess feasibility, compare alternatives, and reduce delivery risk.
• Lead product design through delivery and iteration, establishing and maintaining high standards for product thinking, interaction design, information architecture, visual design, and overall user experience.
• Define measures of product and experience success and use research, usability testing, product signals, analytics, and user feedback to evaluate outcomes and inform ongoing product decisions.
• Provide guidance and feedback to Product Design team members by setting expectations, delegating ownership.
• Advance AI-enabled design practices and communicate product direction and recommendations to stakeholders, using emerging AI, research, and prototyping capabilities to accelerate learning while building alignment around priorities, tradeoffs, and proposed investments.

Education and/or Experience

Required: Bachelor’s degree in Design, Human-Computer Interaction, Product Management, or a related field, or equivalent professional experience.

A minimum of 8 years of experience in product design or related roles, including demonstrated experience leading product design initiatives and teams through discovery, definition, prototyping, delivery, and iteration.

Experience designing complex enterprise products, workflows, or platforms involving multiple personas, handoffs, business rules, exceptions, and information dependencies.

Demonstrated ability to analyze ambiguous business problems, develop domain knowledge, challenge assumptions, evaluate competing approaches, and translate findings into effective product solutions.

Experience partnering with Product Management, Engineering, and business stakeholders to inform product direction, requirements, feasibility, priorities, tradeoffs, and delivery decisions.

Experience applying AI-enabled tools and approaches to product design, research, prototyping, or product development.

Strong communication and influence skills, with the ability to articulate product rationale, recommendations, tradeoffs, and outcomes to stakeholders at multiple organizational levels.

Ability to manage competing priorities and exercise sound judgment in a fast-moving environment.

Portfolio demonstrating product thinking, problem framing, workflow and systems design, prototyping, validation, interaction and visual design, and measurable product or user outcomes.

Preferred

• Experience in a professional services environment, such as legal, financial services, accounting, or consulting.
• Experience designing or leading AI-enabled products, workflows, or platforms.
• Product Management experience, training, or relevant certification.
• Experience establishing or scaling design standards, design systems, or shared product patterns.
• Experience using product analytics, UX metrics, and qualitative feedback to evaluate outcomes and inform product priorities.
• Hands-on experience with AI-enabled and code-based prototyping tools.

#LI-JW1 #LI-Hybrid

Applicants must be authorized to work in the United States without the need for employer sponsorship, now or in the future.

The target salary range for this role is: $141,400 - $211,200 if located in Illinois or Texas.

Salaries vary by location and are based on numerous factors, including, but not limited to, the relevant market, skills, experience, and education of the selected candidate.

Our compensation package also includes bonus eligibility and a comprehensive benefits program.

Benefits information can be found at Sidley.com/Benefits.

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform the Duties and Responsibilities above satisfactorily and meet the requirements.

The requirements listed above are representative of the minimum knowledge, skill, and/or ability required.

Reasonable accommodations will be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions of the job.

If you need such an accommodation, please email [e-mail] (current employees should contact Human Resources).

Sidley Austin LLP is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Sidley is an elite global law firm with a known reputation of deploying innovative strategies to achieve powerful results.

Business professionals are essential to the firm’s ability to deliver the highest quality legal services to our clients.

We are always looking for talented, motivated individuals who thrive in a performance-driven culture to join our team.

Sidley employs approximately 2,300 lawyers working with our clients in complex transactional, restructuring, crisis management, investigation, regulatory, and litigation matters.

Our 160 years of perspective and reach are truly global, supported by 21 offices strategically situated in key commercial, regulatory, and financial centers across the world.

Our lawyers and business professionals, fluent in more than 75 languages, possess the cultural awareness and cross-border legal acumen needed to bring clarity to a dynamic business landscape.