Senior UX/UI Designer - Direct Contract

Senior UX/UI Designer, Strategic & Client Facing - Direct Contract

• Location: Remote (U.S.)
• Type: Contract (long-term fractional, with potential for full-time conversion based on business need)
• Reports To: Director of Design
• Start: ASAP

As Cro Metrics continues to strengthen and scale its integrated growth marketing services, the Design team is expanding to meet rising demand across CRO experimentation, website design and development, lifecycle marketing, and paid media. This role is part of a strategic hiring plan to bring on reliable, high-quality design talent that strengthens both our creative, strategic thinking and our technical design capabilities.

This is a strategic and technical design role. You'll own the thinking and the execution — from shaping UX strategy and design systems to producing high-quality deliverables across website redesigns, landing pages, paid media, and lifecycle marketing. You'll collaborate deeply with strategists, engineers, analysts, and clients to deliver design work that drives measurable impact. This role also contributes to helping Cro Metrics mature its AI-powered design capabilities — integrating the latest AI tools into our design workflows and staying on the leading edge of what's possible.

This is a long-term fractional contractor role. Most contractors stay on contract — the relationship is designed to be sustainable at part-time hours. Conversion to full-time employment happens selectively when there's a clear business need and mutual interest. Either way, we're looking for someone we can build with long-term.

About Cro Metrics

At Cro Metrics, we're on a mission to redefine growth for organizations and brands through unparalleled digital experiences that inspire action and deliver results. We are an experiment-led growth marketing agency that partners with mission-driven and high-growth companies to scale through data-driven experimentation. Our expertise spans A/B testing, personalization, paid media, lifecycle marketing, and full-funnel digital strategy — empowering clients to make smarter decisions that drive measurable results.

Our fully remote team of strategists, analysts, engineers, and designers works across industries including eCommerce, fintech, nonprofit, and hospitality. We believe in autonomy, collaboration, and innovation as we help our clients grow smarter and faster. Our proprietary platform, Iris, unifies analytics, testing, creative, and roadmaps in one system — with AI-powered tools that predict test outcomes, prioritize high-impact opportunities, and surface insights instantly.

About the Role

The Senior Designer: Strategic & Client-Facing brings both strategic thinking and hands-on craft to the Design team. You'll concept, design, and execute across our full range of client work — website redesigns, landing pages, CRO experiments, paid media creative, and lifecycle campaigns (email/SMS). You'll contribute to design strategy while also being the one producing the work, from early-stage concepts through high-fidelity deliverables.

This role is ideal for a designer who thrives in ambiguity, enjoys working at the intersection of strategy, technology, and design, and wants meaningful ownership over the quality and impact of design work across our integrated service lines — including emerging AI-driven design capabilities.

The first 5–10 business days of the engagement are a paid evaluation period. You'll do real client work at your full contract rate. At the end, we'll either continue the engagement, extend the evaluation for a few more days if we need more signal, or end the engagement — and in all three cases, we'll tell you why and pay for all hours worked.

What You'll Do

Strategic Design & Execution

• Lead concepting and design execution for complex client engagements — website redesigns, landing pages, product flow improvements, CRO experiments, paid media creative, and lifecycle campaigns (email/SMS).
• Contribute to design strategy by bringing a strong UX perspective to planning conversations, identifying opportunities, and recommending approaches — while strategists own the hypothesis development and journey mapping.
• Own client-facing design presentations — articulate design rationale, walk stakeholders through concepts, and build trust as a strategic design partner.
• Produce the work end-to-end — from early-stage concepts and wireframes through high-fidelity mockups, prototypes, and production-ready deliverables.

Technical & Systems Design

• Architect and evolve design systems for clients and internal use — defining component libraries, tokens, patterns, and documentation that scale across projects.
• Bridge design and engineering — you understand front-end constraints (HTML/CSS/JS), responsive behavior, accessibility standards, and platform capabilities well enough to design solutions that are both ambitious and buildable.
• Collaborate deeply with strategists and engineers to ensure design intent is preserved in implementation, troubleshooting handoff issues and refining specs as needed.
• Evaluate and recommend design tooling and processes that improve team efficiency, consistency, and output quality.

AI Design Practice

• Help mature Cro Metrics' AI design capabilities — explore, evaluate, and integrate AI-powered tools into our design workflows (generative design, AI-assisted prototyping, prompt-to-design, AI image/asset generation, etc.).
• Stay on the leading edge of AI x Design — track emerging tools, techniques, and best practices, and bring that knowledge back to the team in actionable ways.
• Contribute to thought leadership on AI-powered design, supporting Cro Metrics' positioning as an innovator in the space.

Cross-Channel Execution

• Design across all service lines — CRO/experimentation, website design & development, lifecycle (email/SMS), and paid media — delivering cohesive, high-quality work.
• Conduct accessibility and UX/UI audits — evaluate client sites and experiences against accessibility standards (WCAG), UX best practices, and conversion optimization principles, delivering actionable findings and design recommendations.
• Proactively identify opportunities for design-led improvements, new experiment ideas, and service innovations.

What We're Looking For

• 5–8+ years of experience in UX/UI design, product design, or a senior design role that blended strategic thinking with hands-on craft.
• A strong portfolio demonstrating strategic depth — we want to see how you think, not just what you make. Show us your process: research insights, strategic framing, multiple explorations, rationale, and outcomes.
• Proven experience leading design on complex, multi-stakeholder projects — website redesigns, product strategy, or multi-channel experience design.
• Design systems expertise — you've built, maintained, or significantly contributed to scalable design systems.
• Strong technical design fluency — you understand front-end development constraints, responsive design, accessibility (WCAG), and can have a productive working conversation with engineers.
• Client-facing confidence — you can present concepts, explain reasoning, handle feedback gracefully, and build trust with senior stakeholders.
• Experience with data-informed design — you're comfortable working with analytics, experiment results, and user research to guide decisions.
• Fluency in Figma — advanced use of components, variables, auto-layout, prototyping, and design tokens.
• Demonstrated experience with AI-powered design tools and workflows — you've integrated AI into your own practice and have a clear point of view on where it's headed.
• Self-directed, proactive, and highly reliable — you take ownership, communicate clearly, and follow through consistently.

AI is a hard requirement, not a preference. This role requires active, demonstrated use of AI tools in your daily workflow. You'll be asked to show concrete AI-integrated workflows during the interview process. Candidates who cannot demonstrate practical AI tool use will not advance.

Must Haves

• Experience at a CRO, experimentation, or growth marketing agency.
• Experience designing for A/B testing and personalization platforms (Optimizely, VWO, Dynamic Yield, or similar).
• Background in eCommerce, SaaS, or subscription-based product design.
• Experience with lifecycle marketing design (email/SMS for Klaviyo, Braze, Iterable, etc.).
• Experience with paid media creative strategy and design (Meta, Google, LinkedIn, programmatic).
• Contributions to design thought leadership — writing, speaking, community involvement.

What Success Looks Like

• You become a trusted design partner for strategists, engineers, and clients — relied on for both strategic thinking and high-quality execution.
• Complex projects move faster and produce better outcomes because of your UX strategy and design systems work.
• Your work spans the full range of our services — website redesigns, CRO experiments, paid media, lifecycle — and consistently delivers quality across all of them.
• You measurably advance Cro Metrics' AI design capabilities — new tools adopted, new workflows established, or internal processes meaningfully improved.
• Clients view Cro Metrics' design work as a competitive differentiator, not just a service fulfillment function.
• You proactively surface experiment ideas, UX opportunities, and process improvements that elevate the entire team.