• Elevate Design Into a Strategic, High-Impact Function • Define the long-term design vision and translate it into a clear, actionable strategy and roadmap with visible incremental progress month over month. • Build a culture where UX/UI is a strategic partner across Product, Engineering, CS, and GTM. • Reset expectations around experience quality, process, and user-centered design. • Lead Design Strategy Across the Product Portfolio • Partner with Product leadership to influence roadmap decisions using user insights, experience principles, and holistic design thinking. • Own the end-to-end experience strategy across modules, ensuring coherence, clarity, and usability. • Establish design principles and patterns that scale across complex workflows. • Hands-On Design Execution • Personally design UX flows, wireframes, prototypes, and high-fidelity UI for major initiatives. • Collaborate closely with Product and Engineering to iterate quickly and ensure experience quality. • Champion accessibility, simplicity, and a consistent design system. • Build a Modern Design Process & Operating System • Introduce design rituals that elevate collaboration and design outcomes. • Mature and expand our design system and reusable component library. • Implement workflows that balance velocity with quality. • Own User Research & Insights • Lead a practical, actionable research approach that informs product decisions. • Identify research priorities and synthesize insights into clear recommendations. • Build lightweight measurement frameworks to track UX improvements. • Own Design Tools & Data-Driven Decision Making • Own and optimize design tools (e.g., Figma, Pendo). • Develop the strategy for leveraging behavioral data and insights to improve usability. • Ensure design decisions are grounded in evidence, not assumptions. • Integrate AI Thoughtfully Into the Experience • Identify opportunities to incorporate AI into workflows, automation, and decision support. • Partner with Product & Engineering to design intuitive and trustworthy AI-enabled experiences. • Bring awareness of emerging AI UX patterns into Caret’s product strategy. • Lead and Mentor the Design Team • Manage and develop designers, providing clear direction and coaching. • Foster a creative, high-performance culture. • Shape future team structure and hiring as the function grows.