User Experience (UX) Designer (Technology Innovation Division)

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

Job summary

MBTA is seeking an experienced UX Designer to plan and deliver user-centered design and research across defined product areas. You will translate insights into actionable solutions, contribute to roadmaps, and work with product and engineering partners to ensure feasible, accessible experiences.

The role emphasizes usability, accessibility, and alignment with organizational goals, leveraging design systems and cross-functional collaboration to deliver production-ready outputs.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree from an accredited institution.
• Two years of relevant professional UX design experience.
• Strong working knowledge of UX design methods and practices.
• Ability to plan and deliver UX work for complex problems.
• Experience conducting or contributing to qualitative research end-to-end.
• Experience designing multi-touchpoint or platform-level experiences.
• Ability to collaborate effectively with product and engineering partners.
• Ability to communicate design/research decisions clearly, including tradeoffs.
• As part of selection, candidates may complete technical assessments including a UX case study or whiteboarding.

Responsibilities

• Plan and deliver UX design across features, producing flows, wireframes, prototypes, and specifications.
• Conduct and contribute to qualitative research activities, including planning, interviews, synthesis, and communicating findings.
• Apply research insights to design solutions balancing user needs, accessibility, and constraints.
• Use design systems and standards to ensure consistency and quality.
• Design coherent experiences across touchpoints and journeys.
• Contribute to product definition, roadmap discussions, and sprint planning.
• Identify usability or accessibility risks early and address with cross-functional teams.
• May mentor junior designers and help define design standards.
• Participate in usability testing, accessibility evaluation, and design QA.
• Engage in team rituals and promote UX principles and practices.

Skills

UX design methods

Qualitative research

Collaboration with product/engineering

Usability testing

Accessibility awareness

Education

Bachelor's degree

Job description

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 cross-functional 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.

• 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 touchpoints, 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.
• Perform all other duties and projects that may be assigned.

Additional responsibilities may include focus on one or more departments or locations. See applicable addendum for department or location specific functions.

Supervision

• No direct reports.

• 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.

• 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.