Senior UX Strategist

Compensation Range:

Position Summary

The Senior UX Strategist is responsible for shaping and optimizing end-to-end customer experiences across the prospective student journey through research, journey strategy, customer discovery, service design, and innovation. This role leads user research, journey mapping, design thinking, and requirements gathering to uncover customer needs, identify experience opportunities, and translate insights into actionable strategies and scalable solutions.

Working cross-functionally with Product, Design, Analytics, Marketing, and Technology teams. The Senior UX Strategist drives alignment, influences decision-making, and helps create customer-centered digital experiences that improve engagement, conversion, and overall user outcomes.

Essential Functions:

Experience Strategy & Journey Mapping

• Lead end-to-end prospective student journey mapping, service blueprinting, and experience strategy initiatives across National University's digital ecosystem.
• Define current-state and future-state prospective student journeys, identifying friction points, unmet needs, moments that matter, and opportunities to improve engagement, inquiry, application progression, and enrollment outcomes.
• Translate prospective student insights, institutional priorities, and business objectives into experience strategies, journey roadmaps, and prioritized recommendations that influence digital product and UX roadmaps.
• Develop experience frameworks, journey principles, and future-state vision artifacts that guide customer-centered digital experiences across the prospective student lifecycle.
• Partner with Marketing, Enrollment, Product, and Digital teams to align prospective student journey priorities with institutional goals and long-term digital strategy.

User Research & Discovery

• Develop and own the UX research strategy and roadmap supporting prospective student experience initiatives.
• Lead and execute qualitative and quantitative research, including stakeholder interviews, prospective student interviews, usability testing, surveys, concept validation, diary studies, and behavioral research.
• Synthesize customer insights, behavioral analytics, market research, competitive analysis, and voice-of-the-customer findings into strategic recommendations that shape experience strategy and digital priorities.
• Establish and mature UX research standards, repositories, tools, governance, and knowledge-sharing practices that strengthen organizational understanding of prospective student behaviors and needs.
• Manage research vendors, participant recruitment, research operations, budgets, and external partnerships to ensure high-quality research execution.
• Partner with the Digital Analytics team to combine qualitative and quantitative insights into a comprehensive understanding of prospective student behaviors, motivations, and decision-making.

Innovation, Ideation & Experience Planning

• Lead design thinking workshops, customer journey workshops, ideation sessions, and cross-functional innovation initiatives focused on improving the prospective student experience.
• Facilitate collaborative discovery sessions with Product, Marketing, Engineering, Analytics, Enrollment, and Content teams to identify customer needs, define opportunities, and align on future-state experiences.
• Gather, synthesize, and prioritize business, customer, and technical requirements, translating findings into strategic experience recommendations, opportunity assessments, and implementation-ready requirements.
• Develop future-state journey concepts, service blueprints, experience frameworks, and innovation proposals that improve prospective student engagement and enrollment outcomes.
• Research emerging trends in customer experience, AI, higher education, and digital innovation to identify new opportunities that strengthen National University's prospective student experience.
• Influence digital product and experience roadmaps by advocating for prospective student needs, journey improvements, and evidence-based experience decisions.

Supervisory Responsibilities:

• Individual contributor role that provides leadership through influence and expertise; scope may evolve over time based on organizational needs.

Requirements:

Education & Experience:

• Bachelor’s degree in marketing, Business, Analytics, Statistics, Human-Computer Interaction, or a related field. Master’s degree or M.B.A. preferred.
• 6 -8 years of experience in UX Strategy, UX Research, Service Design, Customer Experience, or Product Discovery.
• Experience leading journey mapping, customer research, design thinking workshops, requirements gathering, and cross-functional facilitation.
• Experience managing research vendors and UX research platforms.
• Experience designing for higher education, edtech, or other multi-audience environments preferred.
• Strong portfolio demonstrating user-centered design across complex digital ecosystems.

Competencies/Technical/Functional Skills:

• Deep expertise in qualitative and quantitative research methodologies, customer discovery, experience strategy, and human-centered design principles.
• Strong experience translating customer insights, behavioral data, and business objectives into strategic recommendations, journey roadmaps, and experience investments.
• Advanced facilitation, storytelling, and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to lead workshops, align diverse perspectives, and build consensus across complex organizations.
• Expertise in journey mapping, service blueprinting, experience ecosystems, design thinking, and innovation frameworks.
• Ability to synthesize customer research, market intelligence, competitive analysis, and business priorities into actionable strategies that influence product, marketing, enrollment, and digital experience decisions.
• Demonstrated ability to influence senior leaders and cross-functional teams through customer insights, strategic thinking, and evidence-based recommendations.
• Experience developing future-state vision artifacts, experience principles, opportunity frameworks, and strategic roadmaps that guide organizational decision-making.
• Familiarity with UX research platforms and collaboration tools (User Testing, Userlytics, Dovetail, Miro, Figma, Qualtrics, etc.).
• Strong understanding of experimentation frameworks, behavioral analytics, conversion optimization, and data-informed experience design practices.
• Solid understanding of accessibility (WCAG), responsive design principles, content strategy, and digital experience best practices.
• Exposure to AI, personalization, emerging technologies, and digital innovation trends, with the ability to evaluate their impact on customer experience and business outcomes.
• Strategic mindset with the ability to balance long-term vision, customer needs, organizational objectives, and execution realities.
• Exceptional written, verbal, and presentation skills, with the ability to communicate effectively with executives, stakeholders, and cross-functional teams.
• Ability to work independently, lead through influence, navigate ambiguity, and build strong partnerships across a diverse and matrixed organization.
• Demonstrated commitment to accountability, continuous improvement, collaboration, and customer-centered decision-making.

Location: Remote, USA

Travel: up to 10% travel

#LI-Remote

Candidate receiving offers will be offered a salary/pay rate commensurate with experience that vary based on a candidate’s qualifications, skills, and competencies.  Absent exceptional circumstances, candidates will be offered a salary within this range for this position. The minimum salary will be offered based on the minimum exemption threshold based on state of residency. Base pay is one component of National University’s total rewards package, as we are dedicated to supporting the needs of the “whole you” with our holistic approach to employee benefits by offering comprehensive well-being benefits for you and your family.  For full details about our benefit plan offerings, please visit benefits.nu.edu. For Part-time benefits, please click here.

National University is committed to maintaining a high-quality workforce representative of the populations we serve. National University employs more than 4,500 faculty and staff and serves over 45,000 students. We are united in our mission to meet the global education demands of the 21st Century and are dedicated to creating a supportive academic and work environment that allows students, faculty and staff to develop their interests and talents while experiencing a sense of community. With programs available both online and at our many campus locations, National University is a leader in creating innovative solutions to education and meeting the needs of our student population, including adult learners and working professionals.

National University (NU) is proud to be an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate against any employee or applicant per applicable federal, state and local laws. At NU, a mix of highly talented, innovative and creative people come together to make the impact of a lifetime for each of our student learners. All qualified applicants will receive equal consideration for employment, education, and admission at National University.