Senior User Experience Designer

JOOLA; North Bethesda (MD); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

JOOLA is seeking a Senior User Experience Designer who can set a bold vision for our digital experience and lead a small team of designers. You will own the craft across our Shopify site and apps, persuading leadership to back great ideas and coordinating with cross-functional partners.

You'll balance direction with hands-on design, blending strong UX thinking with high-fidelity visuals. This is a hands-on leadership role that rewards craft and collaboration.

Qualifications

• 8–12 years designing digital products and 2–3 years managing designers directly.
• Portfolio showing rigorous UX thinking and strong visual work with outcomes.
• Mastery of Figma components, variables, auto layout, prototyping, and file hygiene.
• Deep experience with responsive web, native apps, and large-scale design systems.
• Fluency with AI tooling in a design context or demonstrated curiosity.
• Experience working hand-in-hand with developers who know how things get built.
• Cross-functional influence across product, engineering, brand and leadership.
• Experience collaborating with offshore or distributed partners.
• Comfort with ambiguity and shifting priorities in a small team.

Responsibilities

• Lead and grow the design team: manage 2–4 designers daily; critique; growth; hiring.
• Set 12–24 month vision for digital experience; align with leadership; plan quarterly work.
• Own end-to-end journeys across web and app; improve usability and accessibility.
• Design clean, modern interfaces with a high visual bar across platforms.
• Create wireframes, prototypes, and high-fidelity, developer-ready designs.
• Develop and evangelize design system components, tokens, responsive rules.
• Lead user research: interviews, surveys, usability sessions; apply findings.
• Collaborate with tech lead and developers through feasibility, handoff, QA.
• Work with brand and marketing to serve campaigns and brand needs.
• Apply AI to ideation, exploration, production, prototyping; adopt valuable tools.
• Hands-on during crunch times; contribute directly.

Skills

UX Design

Team Leadership

Figma

Design Systems

Responsive Web

AI Tools in Design

Collaboration with Developers

Cross-Functional Influence

Remote/Distributed Work

UX Research

Job description

JOOLA is seeking for a Senior User Experience Designer who can hold two things at once: the altitude to set a vision our whole digital experience ladders up to, and the appetite to get into the work when needed. You'll manage and grow a small team of designers, own the craft bar across our shopify site and our suite of apps. To be the person who persuades leadership to choose that great idea, and collaborate and get buy in from cross functional team partners.

You're as comfortable setting direction as you are solving a hard interaction problem yourself. You have strong UX thinking and genuine visual chops, you understand what the brand and marketing need from digital, and you can carry an idea through product, engineering and leadership without losing what made it good.

This is a hands-on leadership job. If you've spent the last three years only reviewing other people's work, this probably isn't the fit. If you've been the strongest designer on your team and are ready to multiply that through other people without giving up the craft, it is.

Responsibilities:

• Lead and grow the team manage [2–4] designers day to day, assign work, run critique, give direct feedback, set growth paths, and hire as we scale.
• Set the vision for where our digital experience goes over the next 12–24 months, make the case for it to leadership, and break it into work that ships this quarter.
• Own end-to-end user journeys across web and app navigation, discovery, conversion, onboarding, retention improving usability and accessibility along the way.
• Design clean, modern, visually engaging interfaces and hold a high visual bar across every platform and touchpoint.
• Create wireframes, interactive prototypes and high-fidelity, developer-ready designs for web and mobile.
• Build, maintain and evangelize our design system components, tokens, responsive rules and documentation so the team ships faster and more consistently.
• Lead user research and testing: interviews, surveys and usability sessions to understand needs and pain points, then use the results to improve the work.
• Partner closely with the tech lead and developers on feasibility, hand off cleanly, and stay in it through build and QA including with offshore and distributed teams.
• Work with brand and marketing so campaign, performance and brand needs are served by the design rather than fought by it.
• Put AI to work in the design practice ideation, exploration, production, prototyping, research synthesis and help the team adopt what actually earns its keep.
• Go hands-on when it counts. In crunch, you take work on yourself and ship it.

Requirements:

• 8–12 years designing digital products, with at least [2–3] years managing designers directly. You've hired, developed and, when necessary, had the hard conversation.
• A portfolio that proves both halves: rigorous UX thinking and visual work you're proud to put on a screen. Outcomes, not just artifacts.
• Mastery of Figma components, variables, auto layout, prototyping, and the file hygiene that lets a team work in your files without breaking them.
• Deep experience with responsive web and native app design, and with design systems at production scale.
• Fluency with AI tooling in a design context, or a demonstrated, fast-moving curiosity about it tell us what you've tried and what you concluded.
• A track record of working hand-in-hand with developers you know enough about how things get built to design things that can be.
• Cross-functional influence: you can carry an idea through product, engineering, brand and leadership, defend it with evidence and conviction, and recognize the moment when collaboration beats winning.
• Experience collaborating with offshore or distributed partners, and the async rhythm and over-communication that takes.
• Comfort with ambiguity, shifting priorities, and a small team where the job description ends somewhere short of the actual work.

Preferred Qualifications:

• E-commerce or DTC experience you've owned a conversion funnel and moved it.
• Sport, fitness, or another category with real fandom behind it.
• Experience standing up a design practice rather than joining a mature one.

About JOOLA:

JOOLA was first established in 1952 and built a global reputation as a pioneer in table tennis. In 2022, JOOLA expanded into the rapidly growing pickleball scene and quickly attracted the biggest names in the sport. As an official table tennis sponsor for three Summer Olympic Games and the official sponsor of pickleball's top athletes and the Professional Pickleball Association (PPA), the team at JOOLA combines its storied expertise with fresh perspectives to bring innovation to both sports. JOOLA creates a variety of equipment, apparel, and accessories for both table tennis and pickleball players, professional and recreational. With offices in US, Germany, Brazil, and China, JOOLA has a global presence and wide distributor network.