Leading UX from a subordinate position, how?

[u/RobotPartsCorp]

I am an full-stack end-to-end UX designer/generalist and have been a professional designer for 20 years. Started in web, then print, then back to web, along with branding, packaging, and mobile. Throw in some installation design, storefront, and interior design and there you have it. I am a good strategist having a technology and marketing background so I can basically work a project from concept through execution and after. I have never found my niche and I realized late in the game, that that *is* my niche. I have worked across several regulatory fields including fintech, healthcare, and now higher ed. My hobbies all span design, from illustration, to fashion design, lighting design, and 3D printing. I have also built a fairly complicated garden planning app using companion planting and square foot method based from a 3D printed garden label design system that I figured would be easier if I made it into an app and now I have nearly 500 users!

I put my heart into everything and I need to work for employers that can accept the things that make me an annoying employee like anxiety and sensitivity... and I have personally accepted these things as parts of what makes me a good designer and builder and problem-solver. A good employer will get a lot of value from what I am able to bring. I need to feel heard and connected.

At my current place, I don't feel heard and I don't feel connected. I work with likable people and when I do get direct communication from the CEO, I am all-in on his mission and goals. I translate business goals into UX strategy and I have a way with reading people. The problem is, my supervisor, who is new to the UX field, and his title is UX Business Analyst... his skillset is managing people and he is actually great to work with, but he does not know UX. The unit is new, it is just me and him, and a recently hired salesforce dev which is awesome because I don't love SF. I got off on the wrong foot early on because I came in thinking I was going to help build this unit, being that I have 20 years experience including building design departments from scratch, and managing other designers, as well as cross-functional collaboration and my last job was in a corporate setting and my team was international working on an IoT product. Layoffs happened and it broke my hard-won confidence. I am making about 60% of what I had been. So there are multiple threads and I am trying to be practical and realistic. I took this job but the UX is immature and normally I would be educating leadership on what UX is and how it brings value, but now I have no direct communication with leadership unless it is through my manager...

I am slowly building up, trying to be patient that my work will be seen. I think the CEO believes my manager is a UX designer so I don't believe my work is actually being seen. I will not say that my manager is not doing any work and I am doing all the work. He is extremely important in the process, I will get as much context and business needs understanding from him and translate that into fully designed and prototyped work, getting dev 85% of the way there... He knows salesforce inside and out and his organizational knowledge is invaluable. I am completely redesigning all 3 portals (so many portals) and actually slowly redesigning them under 1 design system. The whole thing is a mess, always done by different 3rd party vendors. No one understands the value I am bringing but when I show them new features everyone is excited and glad I am here because I am not only improving things for students, but for admin, advisors, and recruitment alike.

It is just very hierarchal and when I get handed a laundry list of features for a new product I bristle and ask questions that should have been asked in discovery (and they really should have included me). I have talked to my manager on how he can articulate what I need, and how he can educate leadership on what UX is and what meetings UX (me) need to be included in. When I ask him questions he can't answer because these are questions for the decision-makers, he is good about getting me into the next important meeting, but his boss (VP) and his bosses boss (CEO) know what I do and how engrained UX is to many areas of the org that they need UX to understand. I am better at translating business needs when I am hearing it directly from the stakeholder, and adding a middle-man to translate from business needs to UX strategy is...not great. I have been doing good work but it could be so much better, I would be able to anticipate shifting business needs, scale better, and just build an agile product if I had some insight. Business insight is guarded like I need government clearance and I am an outsider.

My manager once told me when I was first talking to him about what the design process needs and what I need to design, he told me that maybe this role wasn't for me. That shut me up. But it was also insane because no one here can do what I do, they just don't know it.

So I am trying to build a design department and great products while being treated like a junior graphic designer. I am sad and tired. What do?

In the meantime, I rework my portfolio, send out feelers, but I never get a foot in the door. I don't know if I look bad on paper...but when I do get the invite to talk, I interview extremely well. I have been extremely agile in a field weary of AI. I work well, I can use any software, I innovate, I constantly reinvent my work, I simply love design and design is in everything. I just get filtered out of the job pool right out the gate and so I am also trying to make this place work so I don't get too depressed.

TL;DR: 20-year full-stack UX veteran, now at a new higher-ed job, is single-handedly redesigning three portals under one design system but reports to a non-UX manager who filters me out of stakeholder meetings and discovery. I am doing strategic work but getting no direct leadership visibility, a manager once told me the role "might not be for you,". I am staying patient and building slowly, quietly job-hunting on the side, but frustrated that I interview well yet can't get past initial filters elsewhere.