Lead CX/UX Designer

Wolters Kluwer

About the Team

Wolters Kluwer’s Digital Experience Group (DXG) designs and delivers user-centered solutions across our global Tax & Accounting portfolio. In the Netherlands, we support tax professionals and accountants with mission-critical software that enables compliance, advisory excellence, and operational efficiency in a highly regulated environment.

Our UX organization partners closely with Product Management, Engineering teams & research teams to create solutions that are not only usable but strategically differentiated. We operate in complex multi-role, multi-regulatory contexts where precision, trust, and responsible innovation are essential.

About the role

As Lead CX/UX Designer – Tax & Accounting Netherlands, you own the design direction for a product line within the Dutch Tax & Accounting business unit. You align user needs, business strategy, and technical feasibility to deliver high-impact experiences across multiple products.

You combine strategic design leadership with people management. You will guide and develop a team of 4–5 designers, shape research and design strategy at portfolio level, and ensure that UX capacity is aligned with roadmap priorities and initiatives.

This role requires the ability to influence senior stakeholders, and hands-on leadership in supporting research, service design, AI-enabled experiences, and responsible design practices.

Essential duties and responsibilities

Strategy & portfolio leadership

• Own and drive the design direction across multiple products within the Dutch Tax & Accounting portfolio
• Align user insights, BU priorities, AI/technology capabilities, and regulatory constraints into cohesive experience strategies
• Contribute to Business Unit visioning and annual planning cycles
• Identify UX capacity gaps and proactively escalate needs during roadmap and budget discussions
• Partner with stakeholders to inform hiring and budget allocation decisions
• Translate strategy into clear UX priorities that support measurable product line impact

User research strategy & execution

• Lead research strategy across portfolios
• Collaborate with the research team on research studies for multi-role, multi-regulatory environments (e.g., accountants, SMEs, advisors)
• Collaborate on AI (research) initiatives to inform intelligent and agentic user experiences
• Engage senior stakeholders across Product, Engineering and Design to define research direction in collaboration with the researcher
• Apply service design methods such as ecosystem mapping and end-to-end journey modeling
• Define and evolve maturity models for user understanding across personas and segments
• Merge behavioral analytics and qualitative research into actionable insights
• Identify cross-product patterns in Job Maps and workflow behaviors

Design leadership & delivery

• Provide daily direction, coaching and feedback to 4–5 designers
• Ensure consistent application and evolution of the Wolters Kluwer Product Design System
• Plan and facilitate Design Thinking workshops, brainstorm sessions, and strategic alignment workshops
• Act as primary liaison between UX, Product Management and Engineering
• Maintain high standards of accessibility (WCAG), usability and technical feasibility
• Guide the integration of AI-powered experiences, prompt design, LLM orchestration and responsible AI principles
• Define UX and AI evaluation metrics to measure impact

Job Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in UX/Product Design, preferably in complex B2B software environments
• Proven experience leading design across multiple products or a product line
• Experience managing designers (direct reports required)
• Deep understanding of Lean Product and Lean UX principles
• Experience working in cross-functional teams
• Ability to operate with limited guidance and make independent strategic decisions

Experience in Tax & Accounting or other regulated industries is highly desirable.

Technical Skills

• Experience with design systems and scalable UX patterns
• Strong knowledge of WCAG standards and accessibility compliance
• Experience synthesizing qualitative research and quantitative analytics
• Familiarity with AI-enabled interfaces, prompting strategies and evaluation frameworks
• Advanced proficiency in Figma
• Understanding of HTML5/CSS3 fundamentals
• Experience working in Agile software development environments
• Clear articulation of your leadership role, team collaboration and measurable impact

You should be prepared to present case studies to senior stakeholders.