[Remote] Lead Product Designer

Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. New York Life is seeking a contract Lead Product Designer for NYL360, its agentic AI platform for insurance agents. The role sets design direction and quality for a cross-functional squad, shapes platform experiences and roadmap, and partners with Product, Engineering, and Implementation through delivery and QA.

Responsibilities

• Turn ambiguous, cross-cutting problems into clear user flows and high-Client prototypes for core NYL360 workflows (e.g., navigation, dashboards, servicing tasks, forms, document and data review, and key decision points)
• Set and govern the design quality bar: production-ready prototypes ( component usage, states, responsive behavior, content guidance, accessibility notes, and edge cases), Dev Mode handoff, and design QA against intent
• Lead NYL360’s use of Madi: apply and extend components and patterns, drive contributions through the contribution process, and keep documentation current so the team moves faster with each release
• Influence roadmap and prioritization with Product Owners/Managers and leadership; contribute to PI planning and sprint ceremonies and keep design ahead of development across concurrent sprints
• Collaborate daily with Product, Engineering, and Implementation teams; manage stakeholder conflict, make pragmatic tradeoffs, and unblock engineers during build
• Work from analytics, usability research, support drivers, and stakeholder input to identify friction, prioritize fixes and enhancements, and translate findings into designs that move the numbers
• Identify delivery, compliance, and experience risks early and escalate them with clear options
• Facilitate working sessions (story mapping, journey mapping, design studios, and critique) to align on problems, explore options, and land decisions quickly
• Coach and mentor designers on the NYL360 squad through critique and feedback, raising craft and consistency across the team’s work
• Present design strategy, rationale, and impact to senior and executive stakeholders, framing decisions in terms of business value
• Advocate for the user in cross-functional discussions, using evidence to align stakeholders on the right problems to solve
• Bring AI-assisted workflows into the team’s practice and guide design for AI-powered NYL360 capabilities with transparency, accessibility, and compliance in mind

Skills

• Portfolio required
• 10+ years of digital product design experience, including leading design for a product, workstream, or portfolio, with a track record of shipping high-quality, production-ready work across product types (e.g., responsive web, apps, portals, workflow tools)
• Deep craft in high-Client UI, design systems, responsive and multi-breakpoint design, and detailed developer handoff, with the judgment to set standards others follow
• Experience owning a live product after launch, iterating through a continuous roadmap and tying enhancements to measurable outcomes
• Experience leading design in a Scaled Agile ( SAFe ) environment, shaping sprint and PI planning with Product, Engineering, and Implementation teams, and staying through QA
• Experience presenting to and influencing senior and executive stakeholders, and clearly articulating and defending design decisions
• Experience designing complex, structured systems such as dashboards, portals, data-heavy workflows, and form-based experiences
• Strong command of interaction design, visual design, and UX writing collaboration, including content architecture across journeys
• Fluent in AI-augmented design workflows (e.g., Figma AI, Claude Design, ChatGPT, NotebookLM ) with measurable efficiency gains; able to review AI-generated outputs for quality and compliance and lead AI toolset adoption across the team
• Expert in Figma (components, variables, auto layout, prototyping, and Dev Mode handoff), able to set standards and train others
• Proficient with FigJam and Miro; comfortable with Adobe Creative Suite
• Familiarity with technical architecture concepts (service-oriented architecture, micro-services, data models) and front-end basics (HTML, CSS)
• Strong understanding of accessibility standards (WCAG 2.1 AA) and inclusive design, with the ability to define accessibility standards for a product portfolio
• Executive-level communication skills; able to align cross-functional leaders and give engineers and designers clear, actionable direction
• Meticulous attention to detail across states, edge cases, and content, with a pragmatic sense of what to ship now versus later
• Comfortable using qualitative + quantitative inputs (e.g., usability testing, Qualtrics, Adobe Analytics/GA4) and OKR-based metrics to prioritize and iterate on live features
• Bachelor's degree in a relevant field (e.g., Design, Interaction Design, Fine Arts, HCI) or equivalent practical experience
• Experience in life insurance, financial services, or other highly regulated industries designing complex application or servicing experiences
• Experience architecting agentic or conversational UX patterns (e.g., goal-oriented flows, fallback states, trust and transparency, and AI-to-human handoff) with attention to Responsible AI and privacy-by-design practices
• Experience shipping designs across a range of front ends (e.g., content management systems, low/no-code platforms, framework-based front ends, native apps)
• Experience with experimentation (A/B testing), personalization, and optimization of key journeys (adoption, task completion, and engagement)
• Advocates for accessibility best practices, with deep knowledge of ADA compliance and WCAG guidelines, and experience embedding them into design solutions

Benefits

• Open to hybrid or fully remote candidates located anywhere in the U.S. for the right individual.

Company Overview