Lead UX Designer - 13 Month Term

About the Role

Join a purpose-driven, winning team committed to results in an inclusive and high-performing culture. As a Lead UX Designer, you are accountable for driving design quality and outcomes across complex problem spaces, mentoring other designers, and strengthening the design practice. You operate at the product and journey level, balancing deep craft expertise with leadership, influence, and decision-making. You are comfortable working with ambiguity and incomplete information, asking smart questions to close gaps, and bringing clarity for teams and stakeholders. You collaborate closely with partners across product, engineering, research, accessibility, marketing, and operations to deliver cohesive, client-centered experiences aligned to business goals.

Join a team that designs digital self-service and assistance experiences that help clients get things done with confidence. We focus on enabling clients to solve problems on their own, guiding them to the right support when human help is needed, and continuously improving how banking can be done digitally—simply, safely, and at scale. This role is as a hands-on Lead Individual Contributor.

What You'll Do

Craft & Design Excellence

• Deliver and uphold high-quality UX and design solutions across complex products, features, or journeys.
• Demonstrate deep expertise in one or more design disciplines, with strong working knowledge across adjacent crafts (e.g., research, accessibility, content, technology).
• Plan for edge cases, variants, and scalability, ensuring designs can be reused and extended across experiences.
• Contribute to and influence patterns, standards, and design systems, negotiating and aligning with peers across teams.
• Apply strong design judgment to make thoughtful trade-offs between quality, speed, feasibility, and impact.
• Demonstrates curiosity about AI and emerging technologies, especially how they impact customer experience, design craft, and workflows.
• Actively explores how AI can augment (not replace) human-centered design, judgment, and creativity.
• Shows awareness of ethical, trust, and transparency considerations when designing AI-powered experiences.
• Stays informed on industry trends in AI, particularly in regulated environments like banking.

Ownership & Decision-Making

• Own the solution to complex, ambiguous design problems at the product or journey level.
• Proactively identify, reframe, and prioritize design opportunities that drive meaningful customer and business outcomes.
• Manage timelines and dependencies, anticipating risks and escalating early to keep work moving.
• Be accountable for understanding how the products and services you support work, including business objectives, metrics, and constraints.
• Collaborate with other Designers to ensure alignment and cohesion across journeys.

Leadership & People Development

• Coach and support designers in both craft growth and professional development.
• Foster a culture of feedback, learning, and design excellence.

Influence, Communication & Storytelling

• Act as a persuasive and credible design advocate, influencing partners and stakeholders inside and outside your immediate team.
• Lead and facilitate effective design conversations, crits, and working sessions with cross-functional partners.
• Manage voluminous and conflicting feedback with confidence, driving teams toward clear decisions.
• Present and tell compelling design stories that connect user needs, design rationale, and business impact, adapting messaging to your audience.
• Represent and advocate for design craft within the organization and contribute to strengthening the design community of practice.

What You Bring

Required Experience & Skills

• Multiple years of experience in product, UX, or digital design, including experience on complex digital products or services. With progressively more responsibility and scope.
• Proven ability to lead design work at a product or journey level, beyond individual features.
• Strong design craft demonstrated through a portfolio of high-quality, impactful work.
• Experience mentoring or coaching designers.
• Comfort operating in ambiguous environments, asking the right questions to create clarity.
• Strong collaboration skills across disciplines including product, engineering, research, accessibility, and data.
• Excellent communication and storytelling skills, with the ability to influence without authority.

Success Looks Like

• Design solutions are consistent, scalable, and aligned across journeys.
• Stakeholders trust design as a strategic partner, not just a delivery function.
• Design standards, patterns, and processes are elevated through your influence.
• Customer and business outcomes improve as a result of thoughtful, well-executed design decisions.

What's in it for you?

• Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Allyship: We strive to create an inclusive culture where every employee is empowered to reach their fullest potential, respected for who they are, and are embraced through bias-free practices and inclusive values across Scotiabank. We embrace diversity and provide opportunities for all employees to learn, grow & participate through our various Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) that span across diverse gender identities, ethnicity, race, age, ability & veterans.
• Accessibility and Workplace Accommodations: We value the unique skills and experiences each individual brings to the Bank and are committed to creating and maintaining an inclusive and accessible environment for everyone. Scotiabank continues to locate, remove and prevent barriers so that we can build a diverse and inclusive environment while meeting accessibility requirements.
• Upskilling through online courses, cross-functional development opportunities, and tuition assistance.
• Competitive Rewards program including bonus, flexible vacation, personal, sick days and benefits will start on day one.
• Community Engagement: no matter where you choose to work from; we offer opportunities for community engagement & belonging with our various programs such as hackathons, contests, Humans of Digital and much more!

Key skills/competency

• Lead UX Designer
• User Experience Design
• Product Design
• Digital Design
• Design Systems
• Mentoring
• Collaboration
• Communication
• Storytelling
• AI in Design