Job Descriptions / UX/UI Designer

UX/UI Designer Job Description Template

A ready-to-customize job description for hiring a UX/UI designer at an agency. Built from real agency hiring loops, not generic HR boilerplate. Copy, adapt, and publish.

What does a UX/UI designer do at an agency?

An agency UX/UI designer owns the entire product surface for client engagements. They run user research, shape information architecture, design high-fidelity interfaces, and build the design system that keeps everything consistent. Their job is to turn fuzzy business problems into usable, on-brand product experiences.

Unlike in-house product designers who can take six months to polish one feature, agency UX/UI designers ship under engagement-based timelines with multiple clients in flight. They have to move fast, present with clarity, and hand off clean files that developers can build from without a dozen clarifying calls.

Job Description Template

Job title

UX/UI Designer

Summary

We're hiring a UX/UI Designer to lead product and web design engagements for our client portfolio. You'll own projects from research through high-fidelity handoff, partnering with strategists, developers, and account managers. If you love shipping product work on agency timelines and want variety across industries, this is a strong fit.

Responsibilities

  • Lead end-to-end product and web design engagements for agency clients, from discovery through high-fidelity handoff.
  • Run research activities including stakeholder interviews, usability testing, heuristic reviews, and competitive audits.
  • Design information architecture, user flows, wireframes, and high-fidelity interfaces in Figma.
  • Build and maintain design systems and component libraries that scale across client products.
  • Prototype interactions for stakeholder review and user testing using Figma, Framer, or ProtoPie.
  • Partner with developers during implementation, reviewing builds and specifying micro-interactions and responsive behavior.
  • Present work to client stakeholders and defend design decisions with research and business rationale.
  • Collaborate with strategists, copywriters, and brand designers to keep product surfaces aligned with the broader brand.
  • Track time against engagement estimates and flag scope changes early.
  • Contribute to the agency's internal design system, templates, and playbooks to speed up future engagements.

Required qualifications

  • 4+ years of product design experience with a portfolio showing shipped SaaS, web app, or ecommerce work.
  • Expert Figma skills including auto-layout, components, variants, and library publishing.
  • Strong grasp of accessibility standards (WCAG 2.1 AA) and responsive design principles.
  • Experience conducting or synthesizing user research and translating findings into design decisions.
  • Ability to lead a client workshop, present work with confidence, and handle tough feedback.
  • A portfolio that explains process, constraints, and outcomes, not just final screens.
  • Experience working inside a design system or building one from scratch.

Preferred qualifications

  • Familiarity with front-end basics (HTML, CSS, Tailwind) so you can speak the same language as developers.
  • Motion or prototyping depth for interaction-heavy products.
  • Experience in a specific vertical (fintech, healthtech, DTC, B2B SaaS).
  • Comfort with analytics tools (Mixpanel, Amplitude, GA4) to inform design decisions.
  • A bachelor's degree in design, HCI, or a related field.

Salary range (2026)

United States

$85,000 to $165,000 base

Mid: $85k to $120k. Senior: $120k to $165k. Lead and principal roles exceed $180k in SF and NYC.

Global

$25,000 to $110,000 base

LATAM and Eastern Europe: $25k to $60k. Western Europe: $50k to $90k. UK and Australia: $60k to $110k.

Top skills to look for

  • Figma mastery including components and libraries
  • Information architecture and user flows
  • Usability testing and research synthesis
  • Accessibility (WCAG 2.1 AA)
  • Design systems thinking
  • Prototyping for interaction design
  • Client presentation and stakeholder management
  • Design-to-dev handoff discipline

Red flags

  • Portfolio shows only final mockups with no process, constraints, or outcomes.
  • Cannot explain how user research shaped specific design decisions.
  • Treats accessibility as optional or a checklist item at the end.
  • Designs in isolation and resists developer feedback during implementation.
  • Uses trend aesthetics to cover weak information architecture and user flow work.

Interview process structure

Stage 1

Portfolio walkthrough (45 min)

Candidate presents two projects in depth. Probe on constraints, user research inputs, and outcome measurement. This is where fake portfolios fall apart.

Stage 2

Design critique session (60 min)

Review a real agency project (with NDA) and ask the candidate to critique the existing flow. Measures product thinking, taste, and communication.

Stage 3

Take-home exercise (4–6 hours, paid)

Small, realistic UX challenge with clear scope. Evaluate research approach, flow decisions, visual craft, and the written rationale they submit.

Stage 4

Cross-functional panel (60 min)

Conversation with a developer, strategist, and account manager. Tests collaboration style, pushback skills, and how they handle client ambiguity.

Frequently asked questions

What's the right salary for a UX/UI designer at an agency in 2026?

US mid-level UX/UI designers earn $85,000 to $120,000 base. Seniors reach $120,000 to $165,000, with design leads and principals going higher. Global ranges run $25,000–$60,000 in LATAM and Eastern Europe, and $50,000–$110,000 across Western Europe and the UK.

Should UX and UI be one role or two?

At most agencies, one hybrid product designer handles both. Splitting UX and UI works once you have dedicated research capacity and client engagements big enough to justify specialization, typically 50+ people.

Do I need to give a paid design exercise?

Yes. Keep it small (4–6 hours max), realistic, and paid. It's the single best signal for how someone actually works. Unpaid week-long tests filter out the best people.

What portfolio signals matter most?

Process over polish. Look for clear articulation of constraints, research inputs, tradeoffs considered, and outcomes. Beautiful final screens without that context are decorative, not diagnostic.

How much research should a UX/UI designer do?

At agencies, designers typically drive lightweight research: 3–5 user interviews, heuristic reviews, and usability testing rounds. Heavy research usually needs a dedicated researcher on larger engagements.

Hire with capacity in mind

A great UX/UI designer is expensive, so the timing of the hire matters as much as the candidate. AgencyPro gives you the capacity signal to know when to bring designers on.