UX Lead / UI-UX DPretty isn't the bar. Provable is.

Most portfolios are full of things that look outstanding in Dribbble shots and fall apart in front of real users, real content, and a real accessibility audit.

We're drafting a UX Lead for a multi-year, public-sector digital program in Canada, and the bar is different here. Your work gets used by everyone, on every device, in more than one language including a non-Latin script, and it has to pass WCAG 2.2 Level AA without excuses.

This is a roster, not a 9-to-5. You apply, we screen hard, you make the bench. When the program calls, you get called up, and a call-up is a guaranteed full-time block, paid premium for premium work.

The seat: UX Lead / UI Designer. One person, both halves.

Most teams split research from visual design and lose the plot in the handoff. This program doesn't. The person who ranks the tasks and runs the tree tests is the person who designs the templates, so nothing gets lost between what users need and what ships. That dual capability is rare, and that is exactly why we are drafting for it early.

What this seat owns

- Discovery research run against a method, not vibes: stakeholder analysis, interviews and workshops, remote community focus groups, analytics review, top-task ranking. BABOK-style elicitation, so every requirement traces to evidence.
- Information architecture argued from data: card sorting, the sitemap, and remote unmoderated tree testing with 30 to 50 participants against an agreed success rate. You design the study, student researchers run the logistics, and you interpret the results.
- Personas and journeys for two audiences: the public, and the editors who will run the site every day.
- Mobile-first wireframes for users on constrained connections, where every kilobyte is a design decision.
- Design system adoption: taking an existing, proven system and adapting it to a brand. That is a different skill from designing components from zero, and it is the skill this program pays for.




- Template and homepage designs that survive four things most portfolios never meet: real content, translation into multiple languages, a formal accessibility audit, and a government approval gate with a date on it.
- The content model, shaped alongside the information architecture, because they are the same thinking.
- Directing junior researchers, so senior hours go to judgment rather than logistics.

The bar, in years

- 8+ years in UX or product design, at least 3 of them leading design on shipped products.
- Genuine dual capability, proven in the portfolio: research artifacts, meaning study designs, findings and the decisions they changed, AND shipped interfaces you designed yourself. One without the other is a different job.
- You have personally run card sorts and tree tests and interpreted them. Be ready to tell us about a structure the data made you abandon.
- 5+ years working in design systems, including at least one adoption of an existing system to a new brand, tokens and all.
- Accessibility as a starting constraint, not a retrofit: 3+ years designing to WCAG AA from the wireframe stage, and you have carried work through a formal audit at least once. If you can read an audit finding and already know the fix, you will enjoy this. If not, this seat will hurt.
- Multilingual interface design: at least one product shipped in two or more languages. Non-Latin scripts count double, because text expansion, direction and typography are where multilingual design actually gets hard.
- Figma at the component, variable and library level,



organized so the developer thanks you instead of DMing you.
- You can present to executives and defend a decision with evidence, in plain language, without a forty-slide deck.

Who makes this roster

- Designs systems, not screens. Components that scale, not one-off heroes.
- Defends decisions with research, not taste.
- Works shoulder-to-shoulder with developers and never throws files over a wall.
- Judged on shipped outcomes, not artboards.

Straight talk about the structure. On-demand contract work, not a 9-to-5. Remote-first, with at least four hours of daily overlap with North American Eastern Time, because research sessions and approval gates happen in the client's day. A call-up is one contiguous full-time block of roughly two and a half months in the fall of 2026, subject to award, with a release date named up front: the day the client approves the design, you are done. And honestly, the calendar has no slack in it. Research feeds architecture, architecture feeds testing, testing feeds design, ten weeks in a straight line to a gate with a date on it. The right person reads that as a clean sprint with a finish line. One more thing, because the compliance bar is real. This seat gets named in a formal public-sector submission, resume and all, and once named, substitution needs the client's written consent. So the person we draft is the person who shows up. Claims are checked to a procurement standard: references who take the call, work that verifies, and an honest answer about how you use AI tools, because on this program AI use is governed, not winged.

To be considered: send your portfolio, resume, and one short paragraph about the hardest design problem you've ever solved to [email protected], subject line "CALL ME UP - UX Lead." Make sure the portfolio shows research and shipped UI, not one or the other.

Skip the cover letter. The paragraph tells us everything.esigner

📌 UX Lead / UI-UX Designer (India)
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