UX Designer - Dallas, TX

📍 Job Overview

Job Title: UX Designer - Dallas, TX

Company: Photon Career Site

Location: Dallas, TX

Job Type: Full-Time, Contract

Category: UX Design, Conversational Design, Product Design

Date Posted: 2025-06-10

Experience Level: Principal (10+ years)

Remote Status: On-site

🎨 Role Summary

• Lead end-to-end experience design for AI-powered, conversational self-service journeys in the vehicle finance domain.
• Blend deep domain knowledge in auto finance with cutting-edge conversational UX and AI-infused interaction patterns.
• Craft intuitive, trust-building interfaces for managing payments, payoff quotes, lease options, and refinancing through chat, voice, and predictive UI cues.
• Drive the creation of a conversational design system and mentor cross-functional teams on conversational best practices.

🖼️ Primary Responsibilities

• Architect complex dialog flows and multimodal UI tailored for chatbots, voice assistants, and in-app widgets, ensuring natural and intuitive interactions.
• Establish comprehensive personality guidelines, fallback/error patterns, and escalation triggers for conversational interfaces to handle diverse user scenarios effectively.
• Collaborate closely with data scientists to seamlessly integrate generative-AI components such as intent detection, next-best-action recommendations, and dynamic content within the user interface.
• Prototype and design adaptive layouts that dynamically respond to and evolve with customer behavior, context (e.g., mileage, payoff date, credit profile), and real-time data.
• Translate intricate vehicle finance tasks (e.g., payoff, lease-end, lien release, refinancing) into clear, user-friendly, and efficient self-service flows, simplifying complex financial processes for customers.
• Ensure all designs adhere strictly to regulatory and compliance constraints within the financial sector, reflecting these requirements accurately in micro-copy, interaction safeguards, and user flows.
• Own and govern a comprehensive conversational design system, ensuring alignment with enterprise brand standards and achieving WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility compliance across all conversational touchpoints.
• Develop and maintain a library of reusable conversational components (e.g., chat bubbles, quick replies, progressive disclosure cards) to standardize interactions and accelerate development cycles for feature teams.
• Plan, conduct, and analyze user research studies, including Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) interviews, usability tests, and heuristic reviews, with a specific focus on optimizing conversational customer experiences (CX).
• Implement robust analytics instrumentation for every conversational node, utilizing tools like Amplitude or Mixpanel to track user interactions and measure the performance of design decisions.
• Design and execute A/B and multivariate tests to continuously refine conversational elements such as tone, pacing, micro-copy, and Call to Action (CTA) placement based on empirical data.
• Provide expert guidance and mentorship to product managers, engineers, and content strategists on best practices for conversational design, AI integration, and user-centered methodologies.
• Champion and evangelize the principles of AI ethics, privacy, and bias-mitigation within customer-facing interactions, ensuring responsible and trustworthy AI-powered experiences.

🎓 Skills & Qualifications

Education: While not explicitly stated, a Bachelor's or Master's degree in Design, HCI, Computer Science, or a related field is typically preferred for a Principal-level design role. Equivalent practical experience demonstrating a strong foundation in design principles and technical understanding is essential.

Experience: Minimum of 10 years of professional experience in designing digital self-service experiences. At least 5 years of this experience must be within the vehicle finance or adjacent fintech domains (e.g., auto loans, leasing, insurance). A strong portfolio showcasing expertise in conversational design, complex system design, and data-driven decision-making is critical.

Required Skills:

• Demonstrated expertise in designing and shipping chat- or voice-based interfaces, with hands-on experience using platforms like Dialogflow, Lex, Botpress, Voiceflow, or equivalent conversational design tools.
• Proficiency with industry-standard UI/UX design tools such as Figma, Adobe XD, or Sketch, coupled with experience in using specialized conversational prototyping tools like Voiceflow, Botmock, or Rive to visualize and test dialog flows.
• Advanced knowledge of AI/ML concepts directly relevant to user experience design, including intent classification, Natural Language Generation (NLG), Natural Language Understanding (NLU), recommendation engines, and the principles of explainable AI.
• Strong command of core design principles, including information architecture for organizing complex content, developing and maintaining design systems for consistency and scalability, ensuring WCAG-AA accessibility standards are met, and designing for responsive layouts across various devices.
• Comfortable and proficient in using product analytics tools such as Amplitude or Mixpanel to track user behavior, measure feature adoption, and identify areas for improvement within conversational interfaces.
• Experience with A/B testing frameworks like Optimizely or Adobe Target to conduct controlled experiments and make data-driven decisions about design iterations and optimizations.
• Stellar communication skills, including the ability to articulate design rationale effectively to stakeholders at all levels, persuade executives with data-backed insights, and provide clear, actionable specifications to engineering teams.
• Proven ability to provide mentorship and leadership, guiding product managers, engineers, and content strategists on best practices in conversational design, user experience, and AI integration.
• A deep understanding of the importance of compliance and regulatory constraints within the fintech domain and the ability to translate these requirements into safe and transparent user flows.

Preferred Skills:

• Experience working with automotive OEM finance portals or dealer management systems, providing specific domain context relevant to vehicle finance.
• Familiarity with major Generative AI platforms such as OpenAI, Anthropic, or AWS Bedrock, and experience with prompt engineering techniques for influencing AI model outputs in a conversational context.
• Background and understanding of voice UI standards and patterns, including experience with SSML (Speech Synthesis Markup Language) for controlling voice output.
• Certification in Voice Interaction Design or Conversational AI (e.g., CCAIP), demonstrating specialized expertise in this domain.
• Working knowledge of common front-end frameworks like React or React Native, which can be highly beneficial for rapid prototyping and understanding technical constraints during the design process.

🎨 Portfolio & Creative Requirements

Portfolio Essentials:

• Your portfolio should prominently feature case studies demonstrating your expertise in designing conversational interfaces (chatbots, voice assistants) and AI-infused experiences.
• Include detailed case studies that outline your complete design process, from initial research and problem definition through ideation, prototyping, testing, and iteration, specifically for complex digital self-service flows.
• Showcase projects within the fintech or vehicle finance domains, highlighting your ability to navigate regulatory constraints and translate complex financial concepts into intuitive user experiences.
• Demonstrate your proficiency with conversational prototyping tools and your ability to visualize and document intricate dialog flows and multimodal interactions.

Process Documentation:

• Clearly document your approach to research and discovery for conversational experiences, including how you identify user needs, pain points, and mental models related to self-service financial tasks.
• Illustrate your ideation and iteration methods for designing dialog flows, handling edge cases, and incorporating AI capabilities into the user journey.
• Detail your strategies for validation and testing conversational interfaces, including usability testing methodologies, A/B testing approaches, and how you use analytics to inform design decisions.

💵 Compensation & Benefits

Salary Range: USD 44,000 - USD 154,000 per year.

This range is explicitly stated in the job description. Compensation will be based on the actual experience and qualifications of the candidate. Given the Principal-level experience requirement (10+ years) and specialized skills in conversational AI and fintech, candidates with extensive relevant experience should likely expect compensation towards the higher end of this range. The Dallas-Fort Worth area's cost of living and market rates for senior design roles were considered in evaluating this range.

Benefits:

• Comprehensive Medical, Vision, and Dental benefits are available for full-time employees, providing essential healthcare coverage.
• Access to a 401k retirement plan, allowing employees to save for their future with potential company contributions.
• Variable pay/incentives are available, suggesting performance-based bonuses or other financial incentives tied to role and company success.
• Generous Paid Time Off (PTO) and Paid Holidays, providing flexibility for rest, personal time, and observance of holidays.

Working Hours: While not explicitly defined, a full-time role typically implies approximately 40 hours per week. The nature of design work, especially at a Principal level involving cross-functional collaboration and problem-solving, may require flexibility in working hours to accommodate meetings across time zones or critical project phases.

🎯Team & Company Context

🏢 Company & Design Culture

Industry: IT Services and IT Consulting. Photon is a global leader in AI and digital solutions, focusing on digital transformation at the intersection of Digital, Cloud, and AI. The role sits within the fintech domain, specifically vehicle finance, indicating a focus on leveraging technology to innovate financial services.

Company Size: 5,001-10,000 employees globally. This size suggests a well-established organization with structured processes but potentially still agile enough to embrace innovation, particularly in areas like AI and conversational interfaces.

Founded: 2007. Photon's history indicates over a decade of experience in the IT and digital space, providing a stable foundation for ambitious projects like re-imagining vehicle finance self-service.

Team Structure:

• The role is a Principal level, suggesting leadership within the design team or across project teams.
• Significant collaboration is expected with data scientists, product managers, engineers, and content strategists, indicating a highly cross-functional team environment.
• The emphasis on mentorship suggests a hierarchical structure where Principal Designers are expected to guide junior team members.

Methodology:

• The mention of "Culture of experimentation," "run fast A/B tests," and "measure everything" indicates a strong emphasis on data-driven design and iterative development methodologies, likely agile.
• Focus on User Research (JTBD studies, usability tests, heuristic reviews) highlights a commitment to a user-centered design process.
• The need for a conversational design system points to a structured approach to design governance and scalability.

Company Website: https://www.photon.com

📈 Career & Growth Analysis

Design Career Level: Principal UX Designer. This is a senior leadership role within the design discipline, requiring extensive experience, domain expertise, and the ability to drive strategic design initiatives and mentor others. The scope of responsibility involves leading end-to-end design for critical product areas.

Reporting Structure: As a Principal, the role likely reports to a Design Lead, Design Manager, or potentially a Product or Engineering Lead, depending on the organizational structure. The role involves guiding other disciplines, suggesting a position of significant influence.

Design Impact: The role has a high level of impact, leading the transformation of digital self-service for millions of users in a core financial domain. Designing AI-powered conversational journeys directly influences customer satisfaction, operational efficiency, and potentially business outcomes in vehicle finance.

Growth Opportunities:

• Design Leadership: Potential to move into management roles (e.g., Design Manager, Director of Design) or continue as a high-impact individual contributor (e.g., Design Fellow, Distinguished Designer) focusing on strategic initiatives and complex problem-solving.
• Specialization in AI/Conversational Design: Deepen expertise in the rapidly evolving field of conversational AI and AI-infused experiences, becoming a recognized leader in this niche.
• Domain Expertise: Further develop deep domain knowledge in fintech and vehicle finance, becoming an invaluable asset in this specialized area.
• Mentorship & Evangelism: Grow as a leader by mentoring more junior designers and evangelizing design best practices and the potential of conversational AI across the organization and potentially externally.

🌐 Work Environment

Studio Type: Office-based (On-site). The job description specifies an on-site location in Dallas, TX, indicating a traditional office work environment. While the specific "studio" or workspace setup for the design team isn't detailed, it's likely a collaborative office setting.

Office Location(s): Dallas, TX (Specific address: 4835 Lyndon B Johnson Fwy, Suite 540 Dallas, TX 75244 United States). Photon has multiple global locations, but this role is tied to the Dallas office.

Design Workspace Context:

• Being on-site in Dallas suggests opportunities for direct, in-person collaboration with cross-functional team members (data scientists, engineers, product managers) also based in that location.
• The work environment likely facilitates spontaneous discussions, whiteboarding sessions, and close interaction crucial for complex design projects, especially those involving emerging technologies like conversational AI.
• Access to physical resources, meeting rooms, and potentially specialized testing environments for conversational interfaces may be more readily available in an on-site setting.

Work Schedule: Full-time, likely standard business hours, though flexibility may be expected given the Principal level and potential for collaboration with global teams, if applicable.

📄 Application & Portfolio Review Process

Design Interview Process:

• Expect an initial screening call, likely with a recruiter, to assess basic qualifications, experience, and interest in the role, focusing on your background in UX, fintech, and conversational AI as highlighted in your resume and application.
• Subsequent rounds will likely involve interviews with design team members (peers and leads), product managers, engineering leads, and potentially data scientists, focusing on your design process, portfolio case studies, technical understanding of AI/ML concepts in a UX context, and collaborative skills. Prepare to discuss your experience architecting complex dialog flows and designing for multimodal interactions.
• A design challenge or case study presentation is highly probable. This might involve analyzing a specific vehicle finance self-service scenario or designing a conversational flow for a given task. Be prepared to walk through your process, rationale, and potential solutions, demonstrating your strategic thinking and hands-on design skills.
• A final round interview will likely involve leadership, focusing on your ability to lead initiatives, mentor others, drive impact, and fit within the company culture. Be ready to discuss your vision for the future of conversational AI in fintech and your experience influencing product strategy.

Portfolio Review Tips:

• Curate your portfolio to prominently feature projects related to conversational AI, chatbots, voice interfaces, and digital self-service experiences, especially those in the fintech or financial services domain.
• For each relevant project, present a detailed case study that clearly articulates the problem you were solving, your role and responsibilities, the design process you followed (including research, ideation, prototyping conversational flows, and testing), the challenges you faced, your solutions, and the impact of your design decisions (using metrics where possible).
• Specifically highlight your work on designing dialog flows, handling complex user intents, managing error states, and creating multimodal interactions. Show examples of conversational scripts, flow diagrams, and interface mockups.
• Demonstrate your understanding of integrating AI/ML concepts into the user experience. Explain how you collaborated with data scientists and translated AI capabilities into user-facing features.
• Ensure your portfolio demonstrates your proficiency with the required design tools (Figma, Adobe XD, Sketch) and conversational prototyping tools (Voiceflow, Botmock, Rive).

Challenge Preparation:

• If given a design challenge, carefully read and understand the prompt, paying close attention to the specific scenario, target users, and constraints (especially any related to the fintech domain or conversational interface).
• Structure your approach by starting with problem definition and user needs, then move into ideation for conversational flows and potential UI interventions. Consider edge cases and error handling within the dialog design.
• Allocate time for presenting your work clearly, explaining your design rationale, demonstrating your process, and articulating how your solution addresses the prompt and user needs. Practice presenting your case study or challenge solution beforehand.
• Be prepared to discuss your collaboration process and how you would work with product, engineering, and data science teams to implement your design.

ATS Keywords:

• Design Skills: UX Design, Conversational Design, AI Interaction Design, UI Design, Product Design, Information Architecture, Design Systems, Accessibility (WCAG), Responsive Design, User-Centered Design, Design Thinking, Prototyping, Usability Testing, User Research, JTBD, Heuristic Review, A/B Testing, Multivariate Testing, Data-Driven Design, Design Strategy, Mentorship, Cross-Functional Collaboration, Design Governance.
• Tools: Figma, Adobe XD, Sketch, Dialogflow, Lex, Botpress, Voiceflow, Botmock, Rive, Amplitude, Mixpanel, Optimizely, Adobe Target, SSML.
• Methodologies: Agile, Lean UX, Design Sprint.
• Technologies: AI, Machine Learning (ML), Generative AI, Natural Language Processing (NLP), Natural Language Understanding (NLU), Natural Language Generation (NLG), Recommendation Engines, Explainable AI, Chatbots, Voice Assistants, Multimodal Interfaces, APIs, Front-end Frameworks (React, React Native - Preferred).
• Domain & Industry: Fintech, Vehicle Finance, Auto Finance, Auto Loans, Leasing, Insurance, Digital Self-Service, Financial Services, Compliance, Regulation.
• Soft Skills: Communication, Leadership, Problem-Solving, Critical Thinking, Stakeholder Management, Presentation Skills, Strategic Thinking, Influence, Mentoring.

🛠 Tools & Technology Stack

Primary Design Tools:

• Figma, Adobe XD, or Sketch: Proficiency with at least one of these industry-standard UI/UX design tools is required for creating screen layouts, components, and visual designs. Expect to use these for static mockups and potentially basic prototyping.
• Dialogflow, Lex, Botpress, Voiceflow, or equivalent: Demonstrated expertise with conversational design platforms is essential for designing, prototyping, and testing dialog flows for chatbots and voice assistants. Voiceflow and Botmock are specifically mentioned for conversational prototyping.
• Rive (Preferred): Familiarity with Rive or similar tools for creating interactive animations or state-based interactions might be beneficial, particularly for enhancing the visual feedback in conversational interfaces.

Collaboration & Handoff:

• Tools that facilitate collaboration with engineers and product managers are implied, likely including platforms for design handoff, specification documentation, and potentially project management tools.
• Experience with tools for maintaining a conversational design system is required, which could involve platforms like Zeroheight, Storybook, or internal documentation systems.

Research & Testing:

• Amplitude, Mixpanel: Proficiency with product analytics tools is required for analyzing user behavior within the conversational interfaces and making data-driven design decisions.
• Optimizely, Adobe Target: Experience with A/B testing frameworks is required for conducting experiments to optimize conversational flows and UI elements.
• Tools for conducting usability testing and collecting user feedback are implied, although not explicitly named.

👥 Team Culture & Values

Design Values:

• AI Ethics and Bias Mitigation: A strong emphasis on responsible AI is highlighted, indicating a culture that values ethical considerations, privacy, and fairness in the design of AI-powered interactions.
• Data-Driven Decision Making: The "Culture of experimentation" and reliance on analytics and A/B testing point to a value placed on empirical evidence and continuous improvement based on user data.
• Innovation and Transformation: The core mission of "re-imagining digital self-service" and "making tomorrow happen today" suggests a culture that encourages innovation, embraces new technologies (AI, conversational UI), and seeks to transform traditional processes.
• User-Centered Approach: The focus on user research (JTBD, usability tests) and crafting intuitive, trust-building interfaces underscores a fundamental commitment to understanding and meeting user needs effectively.

Collaboration Style:

• Highly cross-functional collaboration is essential, working closely with data scientists, product managers, engineers, and content strategists.
• A collaborative environment where design critiques and feedback exchange are likely part of the process for refining conversational flows and UI.
• Expect to contribute to and utilize a shared conversational design system, promoting consistency and shared understanding across teams.
• Mentorship is valued, indicating a culture of knowledge sharing and support within the design team and across disciplines.

⚡ Challenges & Growth Opportunities

Design Challenges:

• Designing for Complex Domain: Translating intricate vehicle finance processes and regulations into clear, intuitive self-service conversational flows is a significant challenge requiring deep domain understanding and simplification skills.
• Integrating AI Ethically: Ensuring AI-powered interactions are ethical, transparent, unbiased, and build user trust, particularly in a sensitive financial context, presents ongoing design challenges.
• Measuring Conversational Success: Defining and measuring the success of conversational interfaces using analytics requires developing new metrics and understanding user behavior in chat/voice contexts.
• Balancing Automation and Human Escalation: Designing effective escalation triggers and ensuring seamless transitions between automated conversational flows and human agent support is critical for complex financial queries.

Learning & Development Opportunities:

• Specialization in Conversational AI: Opportunity to become a leading expert in the rapidly growing field of conversational design and AI-infused user experiences.
• Deep Fintech Domain Expertise: Gain in-depth knowledge of the vehicle finance industry, a specialized and valuable domain.
• Working with Cutting-Edge AI: Collaborate directly with data scientists and work with generative AI platforms, staying at the forefront of AI application in product design.
• Leadership and Mentorship: Develop leadership skills by guiding cross-functional teams and mentoring other designers.

💡 Interview Preparation

Design Process Questions:

• Be prepared to walk through your end-to-end design process for a project involving a conversational interface or AI integration. Focus on how you approached user research for these types of interactions, how you designed and prototyped dialog flows, and how you validated your designs. Use a case study from your portfolio as an example.
• Expect questions about how you handle complex edge cases or errors in conversational design and how you ensure the experience feels natural and intuitive across different modalities (chat, voice).
• Discuss your experience collaborating with data scientists and engineers on AI-related features. How do you translate AI capabilities into a positive user experience? How do you handle the limitations or uncertainties of AI models in the UI?

Company Culture Questions:

• Research Photon's values and recent projects, particularly those related to AI and digital transformation. Be ready to discuss why you are interested in working for Photon and how your values align with theirs, especially regarding AI ethics and innovation.
• Ask thoughtful questions about the design team structure, how design collaborates with other disciplines (especially data science and engineering), and the process for incorporating user feedback and analytics into design decisions.
• Be prepared to discuss your experience working in fast-paced, data-driven environments and how you use experimentation (A/B testing) to inform your design process.

Portfolio Presentation Strategy:

• Select 1-2 case studies that best showcase your expertise in conversational design, fintech, and working with complex systems or AI.
• For each case study, clearly articulate the business problem and user needs. Dedicate significant time to explaining your design process for the conversational flow, including user journey mapping, dialog scripting, and prototyping methods.
• Highlight specific examples of how you designed for different conversational states, error handling, and escalation paths. Show how you considered the multimodal nature of the interaction.
• Explicitly discuss how AI or ML concepts were integrated into the experience and your role in designing that integration. Explain how you ensured the AI-powered features were understandable and trustworthy for users.
• Be ready to discuss the impact of your design work, using metrics or qualitative feedback where possible. Practice presenting your case studies concisely and engagingly.

📌 Application Steps

To apply for this design position:

• Submit your application through this link on the Photon Career Site.
• Tailor your resume and cover letter to highlight your specific experience in UX design, conversational interfaces, fintech (especially vehicle finance), and working with AI/ML concepts. Use keywords from the ATS Keywords list to optimize your application.
• Prepare your design portfolio, ensuring it prominently features case studies demonstrating your expertise in designing complex conversational flows and AI-infused experiences within relevant domains. Focus on showcasing your process and the impact of your work.
• Practice presenting your key portfolio case studies, focusing on clearly articulating the problem, your process, your design decisions (especially for dialog flows and AI integration), and the outcomes.
• Research Photon, their work in AI and digital transformation, and specifically their initiatives in the financial sector to understand their business context and cultural values.