UX Designer for Hire · Lead UX Designer · Principal-track IC

A Lead UX Designer on the principal-track IC path — for hire by enterprise, fintech, and AI product teams.

I'm Vinoth Kumar Manickam, a Lead UX Designer on the principal-track IC path with 8+ years shipping enterprise software, fintech platforms, and AI/ML product interfaces. Available for full-time, fractional, and scoped consulting engagements.

8+
Years leading UX
40+
Designers mentored
$1M+
Revenue impact shipped
AA+
Accessibility shipped at scale
How to hire me

Four ways we can work together.

Full-time Lead or Principal UX role

I'm open to lead and principal UX designer roles — staying on the principal-track IC path — at companies building enterprise software, fintech platforms, or AI/ML products. Remote-first across US time zones.

  • Enterprise SaaS
  • Fintech & payments
  • AI/ML platforms
  • Developer tools

Fractional UX design leadership

8–20 hours per week as the lead UX voice in your product org — design strategy, hiring support, mentoring your team, and shipping alongside them. Ideal for Series A–C startups before a full-time hire.

  • 3–6 month engagements
  • Weekly working sessions
  • Hiring & mentoring
  • Cross-functional review

Scoped consulting engagements

Short, outcome-driven projects with a clear deliverable: AI surface design, design system stand-up, UX audit of a critical flow, or end-to-end design for a single product area.

  • 2–8 week sprints
  • AI / ML interface design
  • Design system bootstrapping
  • UX audits

Portfolio reviews & IC coaching

1:1 coaching for mid-level designers moving into Senior, Staff, and Lead UX roles. Portfolio teardown, interview prep, narrative coaching, and IC career planning.

  • Single sessions or packages
  • Resume & portfolio review
  • Behavioral interview prep
  • IC track planning
Where I add the most value

Enterprise. Fintech. AI.

Enterprise UX designer

Multi-stakeholder workflows, role-based access, governance and audit surfaces — turned into tools people actually want to open. MUSE platform at Fannie Mae, fleet management at Esper, Jira/Confluence at Atlassian.

Fintech UX designer

Payments, investing, retirement, and developer-facing fintech APIs. Vanguard retirement & advice platform serving 2M+ investors; PayPal Developer Portal with AI-powered authorization tooling.

AI / ML interface designer

Conversational AI in 6 languages, model-governance UX, confidence and lineage displays, human-in-the-loop review patterns. The Systemic Design Method is my framework for designing AI inside regulated organizations.

Hiring FAQ

Questions before we talk.

What kind of work do you take on as a UX designer for hire?

I take on senior and lead UX engagements in enterprise software, fintech, and AI/ML products — full-time roles, fractional design leadership, and short scoped consulting engagements (audits, design system bootstrapping, AI surface design). I'm based in Austin, TX and work remote across US time zones.

Are you available for contract or fractional UX design work?

Yes. I take on a small number of contract and fractional UX engagements per year, typically 8–20 hours per week alongside a primary role. Common engagements: design audits, AI surface design, design system stand-up, hiring manager support, and senior portfolio reviews.

What does a senior UX designer portfolio look like?

A senior UX designer portfolio leads with strategy, not screens. It shows how you frame ambiguous problems, lead cross-functional partners, navigate stakeholders, and ship measurable outcomes inside real product constraints. Visual craft matters, but the story is about judgment — why this trade-off, why this scope, why this metric.

What does a principal UX designer portfolio look like?

A principal UX designer portfolio shows org-level impact: design systems adopted across products, frameworks others reuse, programs that change how the company ships. Mine includes the Systemic Design Method — a framework for designing AI inside regulated organizations — alongside case studies where I led design across multiple product surfaces.

Need a Lead UX Designer on the principal-track IC path?

Tell me about the team, the product, and the problem. I'll reply within a business day with whether it's a fit and what working together as your lead UX partner could look like.

vinothm856@gmail.com