Director, Design - athenaConnect

Director, Experience Design - athenaConnect

athenahealth | Posted Mar 9

Full-time

Unknown

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. athena

Connect® 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, athena

Connect 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 athena

Connect 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 athena

Connect 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.

• Own the athena
  
  Connect 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 athena
    
    Connect 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.

• 10+ years of experience in…