Director, Experience Design - athenaConnect

athenahealth•Boston, MA

About The Position

Join us as we work to create a thriving ecosystem that delivers accessible, high-quality, and sustainable healthcare for all. Healthcare organizations depend on interoperability to function—but too often lack clarity, control, and confidence in how their data moves. athenaConnect® addresses this gap by serving as the central hub where athenahealth customers and partners configure integrations, monitor data flow, and make informed decisions about their ecosystem. As athenahealth invests in creating the connections, intelligence, and experiences that unify the healthcare ecosystem, athenaConnect is evolving into a more intelligent, actionable experience—one that turns integration complexity into visibility, insight, and better outcomes. We are seeking a Director of Experience Design to take end-to-end ownership of the athenaConnect experience. This leader will define and steward the experience vision and architecture, build and develop a high-performing design team, and be accountable for experience quality across the entire athenaConnect app—including work delivered by product teams beyond their direct span of control. This is a role for a design leader who can set direction and drive delivery—shaping long-term vision while ensuring high-quality experiences ship continually, and who invests deeply in growing their team’s capability and impact. You will work in close partnership with Product and Engineering to plan, learn, and iterate quickly in service of real customer and partner value.

Requirements

10+ years of experience in experience design, service design, or product design, including direct leadership of designers.
Proven ownership of platform- or system-level experiences spanning multiple teams and product surfaces.
Deep familiarity with healthcare, health IT, or regulated enterprise platforms, with experience in interoperability, data platforms, APIs, or partner ecosystems strongly preferred.
Established track record owning experience outcomes in technically complex environments, partnering closely with engineering leaders to deliver clarity for technical users.
Hands-on experience designing AI-enabled or data-intelligent products, particularly where trust, explain-ability, and governance were critical.
Strong facilitation, influence, and storytelling skills, used to align senior stakeholders and drive decisions.
Demonstrated ability to pair strategic vision with execution discipline, ensuring ideas turn into shipped, valuable outcomes.
Strong track record coaching designers to become more strategic and influential, with specific experience helping tactically focused designers develop business acumen and stakeholder credibility.
Demonstrated ability to establish team standards, processes, and operational excellence in fast-moving product environments.
Comfort having difficult performance conversations and making decisions about team composition.

Responsibilities

Own the athenaConnect Experience Vision & Architecture
Define a unifying experience of vision and architecture that brings together interoperability products and services into one user-friendly platform.
Translate industry trends, regulatory shifts, and practice expectations related to healthcare data exchange into user-centered experiences that support critical jobs-to-be-done.
Align stakeholders around direction and tradeoffs through clear experience narratives, prototypes, and working examples.
Drive Delivery, Learning, and Iteration
Ship high-quality experiences continuously, balancing speed with clarity, usability, and trust.
Use behavioral analytics, qualitative research, and platform telemetry to establish fast feedback loops and adapt priorities based on real user signals.
Apply experimentation deliberately—especially with AI—to learn faster and improve outcomes, not to explore novelty.
Build and Grow a High-Impact Design Team
Lead and develop a team of 3-5 designers, establishing clear performance standards and providing regular coaching that elevates both craft and business impact.
Evolve the team’s contribution in an AI-first world, helping designers shift from hands-on execution to expert judgment, rationale, and influence as AI increasingly handles tactical design work.
Create operational rigor through design critique, quality review processes, and team rituals that build accountability and continuous improvement
Address performance gaps directly, making tough decisions about fit and capability when needed.
Develop individual growth plans that help each designer build the skills and confidence to influence product decisions and own outcomes
Own Experience Quality Across Product Teams
Own experience quality for athenaConnect end to end, including work delivered by teams you do not directly manage.
Define and operationalize experience standards, guidelines, and governance mechanisms that ensure consistency and coherence across the platform.
Establish and monitor customer satisfaction and value metrics (e.g., adoption, task success, trust) and use them to inform design and product decisions.
Partner Closely with Product & Engineering Leadership
Co-own strategy, roadmaps, and outcomes as a core member of the Product–Design–Engineering leadership triad.
Shape how AI-enabled capabilities are introduced, so they are understandable, explainable, and useful to technical users.
Build a team culture grounded in shared ownership, disciplined execution, and thoughtful innovation.

Benefits

Along with health and financial benefits, athenistas enjoy perks specific to each location, including commuter support, employee assistance programs, tuition assistance, employee resource groups, and collaborative workspaces — some offices even welcome dogs.
We also encourage a better work-life balance for athenistas with our flexibility.
While we know in-office collaboration is critical to our vision, we recognize that not all work needs to be done within an office environment, full-time.
With consistent communication and digital collaboration tools, athenahealth enables employees to find a balance that feels fulfilling and productive for each individual situation.
In addition to our traditional benefits and perks, we sponsor events throughout the year, including book clubs, external speakers, and hackathons.
We provide athenistas with a company culture based on learning, the support of an engaged team, and an inclusive environment where all employees are valued.

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