Sr Usability Designer-Center of Excellence

At Philips, there is an exciting opportunity to lead the journey of improving usability quality across all businesses, increasing impact and resolving usability concerns on a foundational level. Philips develops medical devices with a strong awareness of their impact on people’s lives, aiming to create intuitive and seamless solutions for medical staff and patients. Usability designers and engineers help ensure products are safe, effective, efficient, and satisfactory in use.

The Usability Excellence team, rooted in Philips Innovation and Design, is the central hub that supports businesses enterprise-wide in setting the bar for usability quality and achieving excellence. The team consists of 13 experts, led by the Head of Usability, who define usability strategy and roadmaps, set standards, measure, train, and advise on processes and ways of working. Because of the direct link to patient safety and quality, the team works directly with clinical, risk management, and Q&R teams, and escalates to senior management when appropriate.

Your role:

• Collaborate with other senior experts in the central Usability Excellence team to execute the Philips usability strategy and raise the bar for usability quality across business units
• Provide ad hoc senior support to businesses on processes and regulations (FDA, IEC 62366-1, EU-MDR, NMPA)
• Serve as the first point of contact and escalation path for use-related safety and quality concerns across businesses, safeguarding psychological safety
• Partner with global business leads to raise awareness, build capabilities, and align on processes, RACI structures, and timely involvement of usability specialists
• Identify scope changes and key challenges, driving and initiating strategic roadmaps
• Stay up to date on developments in medical device regulations across markets, proactively advising teams and leadership on emerging needs
• Contribute to setting the internal quality bar, defining mechanisms and driving actions to assess and hold underperforming teams accountable
• Act as a senior resource during periods of crisis, providing temporary support to businesses
• Contribute to the enterprise-level usability narrative, leveraging opportunities to engage and evangelize internally
• Mentor junior team members

You are the right fit if you have/are:

• Specialized in medical devices (preferred) or a similarly regulated safety-critical field such as aviation, automotive, or military
• Academic background in industrial design, product design, or cognitive science/psychology with focus on Human-Computer Interaction or human factors
• At least 7 years of progressive experience as a usability specialist or related role, with at least 3 years of experience managing stakeholders in complex environments
• Expert knowledge of usability methodologies, processes, and standards, particularly medical device regulatory standards (FDA, IEC 62366.1, EU-MDR)
• Understanding of academic design of experiments and statistical analysis
• Experience in the end-to-end process of creating products from requirements analysis to validation
• Strong communication, collaboration, and leadership skills to work with multidisciplinary and international teams
• Strong English proficiency in both speaking and writing
• Pro-active mindset

Beneficial skills:

• Understanding of Quality System Regulations (QSR)
• Understanding of risk management process
• Understanding of Agile product development
• Understanding of the medical domain, hospital environments, or specific medical modalities

How we work together

This position requires working onsite in the office for a minimum of three days per week.