About the Role
- We are seeking a UX Lead to manage and grow our design team while shaping the user experience of our products, such as Tor Browser, Mullvad Browser, Tor VPN and Tails OS.
- This role is responsible for leading a team of designers, ensuring user experiences are intuitive, accessible, and aligned with both user needs and organizational priorities while helping build a strong, collaborative, and high-performing design culture.
- This role will lead product design, working across teams including engineering, product, communications, and leadership to help create thoughtful, human-centered digital experiences.
- The UX Lead will manage and develop a team of researchers and designers, ensuring the user perspective is embedded throughout the product development process, from early discovery and research through delivery and iteration.
- This role combines people management with strategic leadership of UX, and hands-on design work.
- The UX Lead will set team priorities and workload, support the growth of individual designers, establish clear UX standards, improve consistency across products, strengthen collaboration between technical and non-technical teams, and advocate for accessible, inclusive, and privacy-conscious design practices.
- Success in this role requires strong leadership and people management skills alongside systems thinking, user empathy, collaboration skills, and the ability to translate complex technical concepts into clear and effective experiences.
What You'll Be Doing
- Manage a team of designers, and lead end-to-end UX strategy and execution across web and software products.
- Set team goals, prioritize work across products and allocate design resources.
- Provide regular 1:1s, mentorship, feedback and coaching to support the team’s growth.
- Build and sustain a healthy team culture, grounded in openness, collaboration and learning.
- Partner closely with Product, Engineering, and Communications teams to shape product direction early.
- Support the team as-needed, including with quantitative and qualitative research, journey mapping, wireframing, prototyping and high fidelity design.
- Champion accessibility, inclusive design, and privacy-conscious product experiences.
- Establish and evolve Design Systems, UX standards, and documentation practices.
- Mentor and support designers through feedback, coaching, and collaborative critique.
- Advocate for user needs while balancing technical constraints, business priorities, and organizational goals.
- Use qualitative and quantitative insights to inform design decisions and measure impact.
- Help cultivate a healthy design culture grounded in openness, collaboration, and continuous learning.
What You'll Bring
Experience managing or formally leading a team of designers, including direct people management responsibilities.
Experience leading UX initiatives across complex digital products or platforms.
Must have experience contributing to or maintaining Design Systems is highly valued.
Familiarity with frontend technologies and constraints e.g. Android/Material Design 3 (must have), Firefox (nice to have), and static websites that function without JavaScript.
Strong portfolio of skills demonstrating systems thinking, interaction design, and user-centered problem solving.
Deep understanding of usability principles, accessibility standards, and responsive design.
Experience conducting or partnering closely on user research.
Comfort working in cross-functional, distributed teams, including leading team members remotely.
Strong communication, facilitation and leadership skills with the ability to align diverse stakeholders and support a team through ambiguity and change.
Proficiency with modern design and prototyping tools specifically Figma.
Nice to Have
Experience working on open-source products or developer-focused platforms.
Background in privacy, security, accessibility, civic tech, or public-interest technology.
Experience designing for global audiences and multilingual products.
Familiarity with participatory design or community-driven product development.
Compensation & Benefits
- Full-time, remote position with flexible geographic location.
- Salary range is $110,000 - $121,275 USD.
- TPI will determine the specific compensation package based on skills and years of experience.
- Benefits include flexible Fridays, unlimited responsible personal time off (RPTO), generous leave options, healthcare (type is dependent on geographic location), a monthly phone and internet stipend, and a tech stipend.
- TPI has a strong culture of transparency and democratic processes, and long-standing community guidelines and cultural norms.
- TPI is invested in discussing the depth and breadth of each candidate’s background and experience during the interview process and using that information to determine the best offer while considering internal pay equity.
About The Tor Project
- TPI is a nonprofit where we are building technology for privacy.
- To advance human rights and freedoms by creating and deploying free and open source anonymity and privacy technologies, supporting their unrestricted availability and use, and furthering their scientific and popular understanding.