Design Manager Jobs in Chicago, IL

Visiting Principal Design Strategist, OPHS IHDD

Hiring Department: OPHS - Institute for Healthcare Delivery Design (IHDD)

Location: Chicago, IL USA

Requisition ID: 1041590

Posting Close Date: July 10, 2026

Salary: The budgeted salary range for the position is $150,000 - $205,000

About the University of Illinois Chicago

UIC is among the nation’s preeminent urban public research universities, a Carnegie RU/VH research institution, and the largest university in Chicago. UIC serves over 34,000 students, comprising one of the most diverse student bodies in the nation and is designated as a Minority Serving Institution (MSI), an Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institution (AANAPSI) and a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI). Through its 16 colleges, UIC produces nationally and internationally recognized multidisciplinary academic programs in concert with civic, corporate and community partners worldwide, including a full complement of health sciences colleges. By emphasizing cutting-edge and transformational research along with a commitment to the success of all students, UIC embodies the dynamic, vibrant and engaged urban university. Recent “Best Colleges” rankings published by U.S. News & World Report found UIC climbed up in its rankings among top public schools in the nation and among all national universities. UIC has over 300,000 alumni, and is one of the largest employers in the city of Chicago.

This position is intended to be eligible for benefits. This includes Health, Dental, Vision, Life Insurance, a Retirement Plan, Paid time Off, and Tuition waivers for employees and dependents.

Position Summary:

The Institute of Healthcare Delivery Design (IHDD) is part of the Office of Population Health Sciences (OPHS) which sits within the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs (OVCHA) at UIC. The Principal Design Strategist executes–or oversees Senior Design Strategists as they execute–IHDD's communication design, service design, and strategy work. They support Senior Design Strategists in managing projects and resources, managing client relationships, and provides quality control for key client deliverables. They oversee and train Senior Design Strategists on business development and project scoping. They may have an area of focus that they lead, or help lead, for IHDD such as overseeing a large client, client vertical (e.g., healthcare system optimization, clinical research, government, etc.), or leading the design strategy practice at IHDD.

Duties & Responsibilities:

Focus Area: Principal Design Strategists will have one of the following areas of focus that they’ll lead, or help lead, for IHDD: Principal Design Strategists will also develop, in collaboration with IHDD, a focus area (for example, leading a portfolio of work for a particular client, being a people manager to junior staff, or developing a design strategy practice around methods or supporting other design strategists to grow and develop new skills.

Client Vertical:

• Maintain and expand subject matter expertise and business network in the client vertical.
• Work with the Associate Director (AD) of Strategy on how to expand our business with, and impact on, the vertical.

Design Strategy Practice Area:

• Collaborate with AD of Strategy to define and maintain client delivery standards for design strategy work.
• Collaborate with AD Operations to create and maintain "ways of working" processes and tools for client delivery.
• Disseminate new processes, tools, and learning to all staff executing on client work.
• Create and maintain a design strategy skills matrix across employees and contractors.
• Staff design strategy staff on projects appropriate to their skills, experience, and professional development goals.
• Manage design strategy staff “non-project” time.

Business Development, Project Planning, and Scoping:

• Helps cultivate relationships with new business prospects and existing clients.
• Identifies new business development opportunities with existing clients.
• Shepherds the business development opportunities from initial conversations to iterative proposal and grant application development, through to contracting and staffing of projects.
• Creates project proposals or grant applications that define how we'll apply design to solve clients’ problems.
• Creates research and design plans and timelines for proposals and grant applications.
• Prices design work for proposals and grant applications.
• Oversees any business development work that Senior Design Strategists do.
• Creates, maintains, and trains IHDD colleagues on project scoping norms, tools, and templates (e.g., project proposal templates, pricing tools, etc.)
• Trains Senior Design Strategists to do consultative selling.

Project planning and management:

• Plans, or oversees Senior Design Strategists in the planning of, design research and strategy projects, from upfront research and stakeholder engagement to development of strategic plans and roadmaps to concept development, prototyping, piloting, and implementation.
• Manages design strategy and project resources: 1) manages staff workloads across the entire portfolio of IHDD projects; 2) manages and maintains business operations tools that track project burn rate and staff allocation; and 3) ensures project data is kept up to date in business operations tools.
• Supports and advises Senior Design Strategists through the lifecycle of client projects, as needed.
• Supports and advises Senior Design Strategists with client relationship issues.

Stakeholder Engagement:

• Carries out stakeholder engagement or provides support and oversight to Senior Design Strategists with stakeholder engagement.
• Reviews and approves any deliverables from stakeholder engagement prior to going to client.

Design Research:

• Carries our design research or provides support and oversight to Senior Design Strategists with design research.
• Reviews and approves any design research deliverables prior to going to client.

Strategy and Communication:

• Carries out strategy and communication or provides support and oversight to SDS with strategy and communication.
• Reviews and approves any strategy deliverables prior to going to client.

Concept Development, Prototyping, Piloting, and Implementation:

• Carries out–or provides support and oversight to Senior Design Strategists who carry out–concept development, prototyping, piloting, and implementation.
• Reviews and approves any concept development, prototyping, piloting, and implementation deliverables prior to going to client.

Staff Recruitment, Evaluation, and Professional Development:

• Creates, deploys, and/or maintains a "competency matrix" that defines how staff can grow and be promoted within IHDD.
• Works with HR administrators to recruit and hire staff.
• Together with other Principals, oversees formal goal setting and evaluations for design strategist staff and holds regular growth conversations about performance and goals throughout the year.
• Reviews design strategist staff’s goals and provides opportunities on project work to further their goals.
• Provides evaluative feedback on co-workers' performance on project and internal work.
• Works with HR administrators to define and maintain a set of career track levels as well as job descriptions and salary ranges for each career track level.
• Together with other Principals, defines, maintains, and executes escalation procedures for employee issues.

IHDD Strategy and Operations:

• Works with IHDD leadership to establish and maintain practices for defining IHDD strategy and helping IHDD grow.
• Executes special projects that advance IHDD in terms of operations and strategy.
• Helps IHDD leadership design and execute IHDD strategy and operational work sessions and offsites.
• Defines and maintains "ways of working" at IHDD, including 1) project management norms, tools, and templates (e.g., project kick off norms and templates, project status update norms and templates, time tracking, tools to measure project burn rate, etc.) and 2) design research, strategy, concepting, prototyping, piloting, and implementation norms, tools, and templates (e.g., interview guide guidelines and examples, roadmap templates, etc.).
• Identifies ways to be more efficient and effective in carrying out IHDD work and develops new knowledge, practices, or processes to improve how we work and advance our goals of making medicine fit people.
• Models and encourages a culture of care, collaboration, and constant learning at IHDD.

Other related duties as assigned.

Minimum Qualifications

• Master’s degree in Human Computer Interaction, Social Sciences, or related field plus a minimum of 7 years’ relevant work experience (e.g., in service design, design research, design strategy, professional services consulting, etc.)

OR

• Bachelor’s degree in design, Human Computer Interaction, Social Sciences, or related field plus a minimum of 9 years’ relevant work experience (e.g., in service design, design research, design strategy, professional services consulting, etc.)
• Demonstrated experience managing teams and clients on project-based work required.
• Demonstrated experience with business development, proposal writing, and project costing experience.
• Demonstrated experience in, and mastery across, the design process, from problem framing, design research and strategy to concepting, prototyping, piloting, and implementing preferred.
• Outstanding verbal and written communications skills.
• Outstanding problem-solving skills.
• Well organized and self-motivated.
• Thrives in a collaborative, multi-disciplinary work environment.
• Strong interpersonal skills that reflect courtesy, diplomacy, and a collaborative approach.
• Can effectively cope with change and make decisions and act without seeing the total picture.
• Can handle – and actively works to reduce – risk and uncertainty.
• Professional work experience translating conceptual thinking into concrete, actionable outputs required.
• Proficiency with visual design tools (e.g., Adobe Creative Suite, Figma, Sketch, etc.) and Microsoft Office programs required.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience working within healthcare or on healthcare-related projects preferred.

The University of Illinois System is an equal opportunity employer, including but not limited to disability and/or veteran status, and complies with all applicable state and federal employment mandates. Please visit Required Employment Notices and Posters to view our non-discrimination statement and find additional information about required background checks, sexual harassment/misconduct disclosures, and employment eligibility review through E-Verify.

The university provides accommodations to applicants and employees. Request an Accommodation

Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools may be used in some portions of the candidate review process for this position, however, all employment decisions will be made by a person.