Sr. UX Designer - Skate (Contractor position)

Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority; Boston (MA); On-site; USD 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority is seeking a UX Designer in Boston to plan and deliver user experience design and research efforts for MBTA products and services. You will translate insights into actionable solutions while aligning with organizational goals and constraints.

As part of cross-functional teams, you will produce artifacts, support implementation, and apply design systems to ensure consistent experiences across rider and staff journeys.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree from an accredited institution.
• Two (2) years of relevant professional experience in UX design.
• Strong working knowledge of UX design methods and practices.
• Ability to support the planning and delivery of UX work for more complex, predictable problem spaces.
• Experience conducting or contributing to qualitative research activities end-to-end.
• Experience designing multi-touchpoint or platform-level user experiences.
• Ability to collaborate effectively with product and engineering partners.

Responsibilities

• Plan and deliver UX design work across features or defined product areas, producing production-ready artifacts such as flows, wireframes, prototypes, and specifications.
• Conduct and contribute to qualitative research activities, including research planning, interview guides, interviews, task analysis, synthesis, and communicating findings to inform design decisions.
• Apply research insights to design solutions that balance user needs, accessibility requirements, operational realities, technical constraints, and agency goals.
• Use and contribute to established design systems, documentation standards, and UX practices to ensure consistency and quality across experiences.
• Design coherent experiences across touch points, considering the full rider or staff journey where relevant.
• Contribute to product definition, roadmap discussions, and sprint planning by representing user needs, constraints, and experience risks.
• Identify usability, accessibility, or experience risks early and partner with cross-functional teams to address them.
• May mentor junior designers and contribute to defining design standards.
• Participate in usability testing, accessibility evaluation, and design quality assurance activities to ensure experiences meet standards.
• Engage in team rituals (e.g., stand-ups, planning, retrospectives) and contribute to strengthening UX principles, standards, and shared practices.
• Support the growth of the design practice through knowledge sharing, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
• Collaborate with product, engineering, and design partners to align on goals, define requirements, and ensure solutions are feasible, user-centered, and consistent with design standards.
• Protect data security, compliance, and privacy across all work by following best practices and established MBTA policies.

Skills

UX design methods

Stakeholder collaboration

Qualitative research

Education

Bachelor's degree

Job description

Position Overview

The UX Designer is responsible for planning and delivering user experience design and research activities that improve the usability, accessibility, and effectiveness of MBTA products and services.

This role collaborates with crossfunctional partners to understand user and stakeholder needs, translate insights into actionable solutions, and ensure design decisions align with organizational goals and constraints.

UX Designers contribute to defined product areas or initiatives by conducting research, developing design artifacts, and supporting implementation through partnership with product and engineering.

They produce reliable, production-ready outputs and apply established design systems, standards, and processes.

Responsibilities

• Plan and deliver UX design work across features or defined product areas, producing production-ready artifacts such as flows, wireframes, prototypes, and specifications.
• Conduct and contribute to qualitative research activities, including research planning, interview guides, interviews, task analysis, synthesis, and communicating findings to inform design decisions.
• Apply research insights to design solutions that balance user needs, accessibility requirements, operational realities, technical constraints, and agency goals.
• Use and contribute to established design systems, documentation standards, and UX practices to ensure consistency and quality across experiences.
• Design coherent experiences across touch points, considering the full rider or staff journey where relevant.
• Contribute to product definition, roadmap discussions, and sprint planning by representing user needs, constraints, and experience risks.
• Identify usability, accessibility, or experience risks early and partner with cross-functional teams to address them.
• May mentor junior designers and contribute to defining design standards.
• Participate in usability testing, accessibility evaluation, and design quality assurance activities to ensure experiences meet standards.
• Engage in team rituals (e.g., stand-ups, planning, retrospectives) and contribute to strengthening UX principles, standards, and shared practices.
• Support the growth of the design practice through knowledge sharing, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
• Collaborate with product, engineering, and design partners to align on goals, define requirements, and ensure solutions are feasible, user-centered, and consistent with design standards.
• Protect data security, compliance, and privacy across all work by following best practices and established industry/MBTA policies, standards, and procedures for secure research, design, documentation, and data handling.

Supervision

Perform all other duties and projects that may be assigned

No direct reports.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree from an accredited institution.
• Two (2) years of relevant professional experience in UX design.
• Strong working knowledge of UX design methods and practices.
• Ability to support the planning and delivery of UX work for more complex, predictable problem spaces.
• Experience conducting or contributing to qualitative research activities end-to-end.
• Experience designing multi-touchpoint or platform-level user experiences.
• Ability to collaborate effectively with product and engineering partners.
• Ability to communicate design and research decisions clearly, including tradeoffs.
• As part of the selection process, candidates will be asked to complete and pass job-related technical assessments, which may include presenting a UX case study and/or a timed whiteboarding exercise.

Substitutions

• A high school diploma or GED with an additional seven (7) years of directly related experience substitutes for the bachelor’s degree requirement.
• An associate’s degree from an accredited institution and an additional three (3) years of directly related experience substitutes for the bachelor’s degree requirement.
• A master’s degree in a related subject substitutes for two (2) years of general experience.
• A nationally recognized certification, or statewide/professional certification in a related field substitutes for one (1) year of experience.

Experience

• More than four (4) years of relevant professional experience.
• Experience working with engineering to document interactions and system behaviors.
• Familiarity with Service Design, outcomes, and jobs-to-be-done frameworks.
• Experience working in agile delivery environments on cross-functional teams.