Design Lead (16-month contract)

You are as unique as your background, experience and point of view. Here, you’ll be encouraged, empowered and challenged to be your best self. You'll work with dynamic colleagues - experts in their fields - who are eager to share their knowledge with you. Your leaders will inspire and help you reach your potential and soar to new heights. Every day, you'll have new and exciting opportunities to make life brighter for our Clients - who are at the heart of everything we do. Discover how you can make a difference in the lives of individuals, families and communities around the world.

Job Description:

Please Note: This is a 16 Month Contract Role

Location: One York Street, Toronto (Downtown) - Hybrid work model - In-office presence 2 days per week.

As the Design Lead, you will guide a multidisciplinary team of Journey Designers, UX Designers, and UX Writers to craft seamless, human-centered experiences that meet the needs of our clients and business partners. You’ll be responsible for setting the vision for end-to-end experience design, coaching team members, and ensuring our design work drives measurable impact. Reporting to the Director, Experience Design, you will play a pivotal role in aligning cross-functional stakeholders, simplifying complex problems, and enabling the delivery of intuitive, accessible, and consistent experiences across digital and offline touchpoints.

What you will need to do?

• Help evolve the design best practices and approach across journey design, UX, and UX writing.

• Partner with business leaders, product managers, developers, and marketers to align design strategy with business goals.

• Champion accessibility, inclusivity, and design excellence across all initiatives.

• Lead, coach, and develop a team of journey designers, UX designers, and UX writers to deliver high-quality work.

• Ensure clarity in roles, workflows, and priorities for the design team.

• Allocate design resources effectively to balance near-term delivery needs with long-term design evolution.

• Oversee the creation and refinement of client journey maps, service blueprints, wireframes, prototypes, and content guidelines.

• Ensure designs are informed by client insights, analytics, and business requirements.

• Drive consistency by contributing to and advocating for the organization’s design system, content style guides, and accessibility frameworks.

• Facilitate design workshops and co-creation sessions with stakeholders to align on priorities and opportunities.

• Communicate design decisions clearly to senior leadership and cross-functional teams.

• Advocate for the client perspective throughout the product and service development lifecycle.

• Adaptive to change, you are nimble and can easily shift focus working with different projects and priorities. You’re comfortable with working in a large organization undergoing transformation.

• Work with Product, Marketing, Business and Technology team to learn and understand business, functional and technical requirements.

What do you need to succeed? 

• 7+ years in UX, service design, or digital product design, with at least 2 years in a leadership or people management role.

• Proven experience leading multidisciplinary design teams (e.g., journey design, UX, and content/UX writing).

• Experience delivering design in agile, cross-functional environments.

• Strong portfolio management demonstrating end-to-end design thinking, from research to execution.

• Deep understanding of client journey mapping, interaction design, and content design principles.

• Excellent communication, facilitation, and storytelling skills.

• Ability to influence without direct authority and manage multiple priorities in a fast-paced environment.

• Knowledge of accessibility standards (e.g., AODA, WCAG) and inclusive design practices.

• Post-secondary education in Human Centered Design, Interaction Design, Computer Science, Graphic Design or related discipline or equivalent combination of education and experience.  

• Demonstrated ability to stay current with emerging design trends, technologies, and AI-driven design tools, with experience applying these innovations to enhance user experiences.

What’s in it for you:

• We’re honoured to be recognized as a 2024 Best Workplaces in Ontario by Great Place to Work® Canada.
• We are thrilled to be recognized by Excellence Canada with their top-level certification, the Canada Order of Excellence for Mental Health at Work®,  for prioritizing employee well-being, fostering a positive work culture, and achieving excellence in mental health.
• Wellness programs that support the three pillars of your health – mental, physical, and financial
• The opportunity to move along a variety of career paths with amazing networking potential.
• As a hybrid organization, you and your leader use business and Client needs to choose where you work, at home or in the office

The Base Pay range is for the primary location for which the job is posted. It may vary depending on the work location of the successful candidate or other factors. In addition to Base Pay, eligible Sun Life employees participate in various incentive plans, payment under which is discretionary and subject to individual and company performance. Certain sales focused roles have sales incentive plans based on individual or group sales results.  

Diversity and inclusion have always been at the core of our values at Sun Life. A diverse workforce with wide perspectives and creative ideas benefits our Clients, the communities where we operate and all of us as colleagues. We welcome applications from qualified individuals from all backgrounds.

Persons with disabilities who need accommodation in the application process, or those needing job postings in an alternative format, may e-mail a request to [email protected].

We are proud to be a hybrid organization that offers our employees the choice and flexibility to work from both the office and virtually based on the needs of the business, our Clients and you! Several work options are available and can be discussed throughout the selection process depending on the role requirements and individual needs.

We may use artificial intelligence to support candidate sourcing, screening, interview scheduling.

We thank all applicants for showing an interest in this position. Only those selected for an interview will be contacted.

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