Director, Inclusive Design & Accessibility

Job description

Our Fortune 500 company is driving a digital transformation and looking for forward-thinking innovators to disrupt how our industry thinks about and uses technology. As one of the world's leading employee benefits providers, we help millions of people gain affordable access to benefits that help them protect their families, their finances and their futures. Are you an asker of questions, a solver of problems, and a challenger of the status quo? Our mission is to provide a differentiated customer experience and exceed the expectations people have of technology at any company — not just insurers. We are seeking individuals to join our team of talented IT professionals who share never-ending passion and an unwavering focus on our customer experience. Team members comfortable working in an agile, fast-paced, and delivery-focused environment thrive in our environment where we value an entrepreneurial spirit and those who challenge the status-quo. Unum is changing, and we’re excited about what’s next. Join us. General Summary: The Director, Inclusive Design & Accessibility leads a centralized UX design practice and owns the enterprise capability for inclusive design and digital accessibility. The role combines people leadership with standards, governance, education, tooling, and cross-functional influence to embed accessible, user-centered practices throughout the software development lifecycle. This is a campus-based, onsite position. Principal Duties & Responsibilities Lead UX Design Talent & Practice Manage, coach, and develop UX designers through performance management, career development, succession planning, and ongoing feedback. Align assignments, capacity, and skills with product priorities; identify staffing and capability gaps. Set expectations for design quality, inclusive design, user-centered methods, documentation, collaboration, and professional practice. Provide design leadership across digital products, balancing user needs, business outcomes, usability, and accessibility. Build an inclusive, psychologically safe culture of learning, accountability, and continuous improvement. Advance inclusive, user-centered design Champion diverse user needs, contexts, abilities, and barriers from discovery through production. Establish practices for research collaboration, usability evaluation, accessible annotations, design-system use, and cross-functional handoffs. Guide teams in applying inclusive design and accessibility to interactions, information architecture, content, prototypes, and production experiences. Connect user evidence, accessibility needs, business outcomes, technical feasibility, and risk in stakeholder recommendations. Operationalize accessibility across the SDLC Define accessibility practices across planning, discovery, requirements, design, development, testing, release, and monitoring. Partner with Product, Engineering, Architecture, Quality, DevOps, Risk, Legal, and Compliance to embed requirements, acceptance criteria, checkpoints, and verification. Create scalable templates, checklists, annotations, definitions of done, review practices, and escalation paths. Promote early engagement and shift-left practices that prevent barriers and reduce avoidable production defects. Clarify shared accountability while delivery leaders retain responsibility for implementation, testing, remediation, and release. Own standards, governance & enablement Establish accessibility standards aligned with organizational commitments, applicable requirements, and recognized guidelines. Serve as senior subject matter expert for WCAG conformance, assistive technology compatibility, accessible patterns, and digital barriers. Curate approved resources and tooling for design review, code analysis, manual evaluation, assistive technology testing, validation, and monitoring. Partner with governance bodies and leaders to identify risk, support escalation, prioritize improvements, and incorporate expert and user feedback. Build role-based learning, coaching, office hours, champion networks, and reusable guidance. Measure adoption, capability, quality, defect trends, risk, and process effectiveness; maintain an improvement roadmap Job Specifications Bachelor's degree or equivalent relevant experience in UX, design, technology, engineering, business, or a related field. Typically, 10 or more years of progressive experience in UX, digital product development, accessibility, or related disciplines, including people leadership. Demonstrated experience developing talent, planning capacity, assigning work, and building design capability in a complex organization. Deep working knowledge of WCAG and the ability to translate success criteria into practical design, content, engineering, and testing expectations. Working knowledge of ADA, Section 508, and related U.S. accessibility requirements, with judgment about when to engage Legal and Compliance. Hands-on familiarity with assistive technologies and evaluation methods, including screen readers, keyboard operation, magnification, voice input, automated checks, and manual testing. Expertise in user-centered design, interaction design, information architecture, prototyping, usability evaluation, design critique, and design systems. Experience integrating UX and accessibility into Agile product delivery with Product, Engineering, Quality, and business partners. Strong coaching, facilitation, executive communication, influence, change leadership, prioritization, and conflict-resolution skills. Preferred Qualifications Accessibility credential such as IAAP CPACC, WAS, or CPWA, or equivalent demonstrated expertise.· Experience establishing enterprise accessibility governance, operating models, reusable frameworks, or maturity improvements.· Experience in insurance, financial services, healthcare, or another regulated industry. #LI-AD1 #LI-Hybrid #LI-Multi ~IN1 Our company is built on helping individuals and families, and this starts with our employees. We want employees to maintain a positive balance, which is why we provide access to the benefits and resources they need to invest in themselves. From our onsite fitness facilities and generous paid time off to employee professional development programs, we are committed to helping employees live and work their best – both inside and outside the office. Unum is an equal opportunity employer, considering all qualified applicants and employees for hiring, placement, and advancement, without regard to a person's race, color, religion, national origin, age, genetic information, military status, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, disability, or protected veteran status. The base salary range for applicants for this position is listed below. Unless actual salary is indicated above in the job description, actual pay will be based on skill, geographical location and experience. $109,100.00-$224,000.00 Additionally, Unum offers a portfolio of benefits and rewards that are competitive and comprehensive including healthcare benefits (health, vision, dental), insurance benefits (short & long-term disability), performance-based incentive plans, paid time off, and a 401(k) retirement plan with an employer match up to 5% and an additional 4.5% contribution whether you contribute to the plan or not. All benefits are subject to the terms and conditions of individual Plans. Company: Unum