Principal UX Designer

Change people’s lives and love what you do! Cochlear develops world-leading medical devices that help people hear. As a top 100 medical device company and market-leader in implantable hearing devices, more people choose a Cochlear-branded cochlear implant system than any other. Our employees tell us that the number one reason they enjoy working for Cochlear is the opportunity to make a difference to people’s lives.

Position Overview / Purpose:

We are looking for a Principal UX Designer to lead UX strategy, quality, and experience outcomes across our Audiology portfolio in the region. This is a senior individual contributor role for an experienced UX leader who operates at a systems level while remaining hands-on in delivery, leading through craft, clarity, and influence rather than line management.

In this role, you will act as the accountable UX voice across Audiology initiatives, ensuring coherent, evidence-based, and compliant end-to-end experiences for clinicians, recipients, and partners.

This is a hands-on role where you are expected to deliver high-quality design, not just define direction. You will operate as a principal UX lead within cross-functional teams, shaping experience intent early, guiding design quality throughout delivery, and stepping into critical initiatives when the stakes are high.

You will partner closely with Product, Engineering, Clinical, Regulatory, and regional stakeholders, influencing decisions at both team and senior leadership level.

This role also provides design leadership support to Acoustics, where workflows and experiences intersect, ensuring alignment and consistency across the broader ecosystem.

Role Dimensions

Deliver high-quality design

• Deliver high-quality design on critical workstreams to support teams already delivering against roadmap

• Translate complex workflows and constraints into clear, usable design solutions

• Use hands-on design work, including targeted research and usability validation, to demonstrate standards and guide teams

Provide craft leadership and quality oversight

• Define, uphold, and evolve UX standards across the Audiology portfolio & practice

• Provide guidance, peer feedback, and quality review to designers contributing to this space

• Step into complex or high-risk workstreams to clarify experience intent, unblock teams, and make trade-offs visible early

• Lead through influence, example, and hands-on contribution rather than people management

Champion evidence-based and responsible design

• Ensure experiences are grounded in validated user needs and supported by appropriate research and usability evaluation

• Identify and manage experience-related risks, particularly where workflow complexity or behaviour change is involved

• Translate insight into clear design rationale that supports usability, quality, and decision-making

Partner across disciplines and influence decisions

• Work closely with Product Managers, Product Owners, Engineering, and other key stakeholders

• Contribute meaningfully to discovery, solution definition, and investment decisions

• Provide structured UX trade-off recommendations to support informed decision-making

• Influence decisions at both team and senior stakeholder level

Drive ecosystem coherence

• Lead design contributions to shared patterns and systems, partnering with Engineering to ensure scalable and reusable solutions

• Ensure consistency across products, channels, and touchpoints

• Anticipate cross-product dependencies and mitigate systemic experience risk early

What You’ll Bring

You are a senior UX professional who brings structure, clarity, and calm to complex environments. You are comfortable operating with meaningful constraints and enjoy balancing user needs, technical feasibility, and business priorities.

You bring:

• Exceptional visual communication, storytelling, and presentation skills

• Strong UX strategy and end-to-end service design capability within complex systems

• Proven experience influencing cross-functional and senior stakeholders without formal authority

• Strong research and data literacy, with the ability to synthesise qualitative and quantitative insight

• A passion for design quality, evidence-based decision-making, and systems-level thinking

• Ability to translate thinking into high-quality, delivered design output

Experience & Qualifications

Essential

• 8+ years’ experience in UX, Product, or Service Design within complex digital or enterprise environments

• 5+ years’ operating as a senior individual contributor shaping high-impact initiatives

• Experience working within constrained environments (e.g. scale, performance, safety, or compliance)

• Demonstrated contribution to multi-product or systems-level initiatives in a matrixed organisation

• Experience delivering high-quality design within real product or service environments

Desirable

• Experience in medical devices, health technology, or other regulated industries

• Experience in stage-gated or structured product development environments

• Design systems or pattern library governance experience

• Exposure to AI-enabled tools and human–AI interaction considerations

• Agency or external partner management experience

Education

Formal education in Design, Human Factors, Psychology, Engineering, or a related discipline. Equivalent professional experience may also be considered. Master’s or PhD degree in a relevant scientific or engineering discipline (or equivalent) For candidates with degrees obtained outside Belgium, a formal recognition process may be required as part of the hiring journey.

Languages

• English – fluent

Application Requirements

Please include a link to relevant work or case studies that demonstrate your experience.

We respect confidentiality and do not expect any proprietary or sensitive information to be shared. Work can be anonymised or discussed at a high level during the interview process.

Why Join Us?

At Cochlear, you’ll work on products that directly impact people’s lives. This role gives you the opportunity to shape experiences used by clinicians and recipients every day, while working alongside teams solving complex, real-world problems.

You’ll be hands-on in delivery, influencing direction, improving quality, and helping teams move faster with greater clarity and confidence.

What we offer

An attractive remuneration package and flexible extra-legal benefits

An extensive onboarding and training program

An enjoyable work environment with attention to life-work balance and homeworking

A stimulating environment with growth opportunities and opportunity to meet multi-disciplinary colleagues across the globe

This is your chance to be part of a premier organization with a great culture, working in a dynamic, growing and rapidly evolving environment to deliver outstanding results that benefit our customers every day. Be part of something purposeful and APPLY now by clicking on the link below and see your career grow!

Cochlear Summary

Cochlear’s mission is to help people hear and be heard. Around the world, more people chose a Cochlear-branded hearing implant system than any other. Our employees tell us that the number one reason they enjoy working for Cochlear is the opportunity to make a difference to people’s lives. Learn and grow with us as we tackle the most complex challenges in helping people to Hear Now. And Always. Cochlear is the global market leader in implantable hearing solutions including cochlear implant systems (CI) and bone anchored hearing aids (Baha™).

Equal opportunities