Senior Ecommerce UX/UI & CRO Strategist

Working Hours: 8:00 AM–4:00 PM Central Time, Monday–Friday

About the Role

Forge Digital Marketing is looking for an experienced Senior Ecommerce UX/UI & CRO Strategist to join our growing web team and help create high-performing ecommerce experiences for DTC brands.

This is not simply a web design position.

We’re looking for someone who deeply understands how people shop online—how they discover products, evaluate options, overcome objections, navigate stores, make purchase decisions, and ultimately convert.

You’ll combine ecommerce strategy, UX/UI design, conversion rate optimization, customer behavior, and data to design Shopify experiences that aren’t just beautiful—they’re intentionally built to perform.

You’ll work closely with Forge’s strategists, Client Success team, developers, and clients to take projects from discovery and UX strategy through wireframing, high-fidelity design, developer handoff, and final implementation review.

We’re looking for someone senior enough that we can give you a DTC brand, its business objectives, customer information, and performance data and trust you to determine:

What should this experience be—and why?

What You’ll Own

Ecommerce UX Strategy

• Understand the client’s business model, customers, products, and competitive landscape.
• Map customer journeys and identify friction throughout the buying experience.
• Develop site architecture and information hierarchy.
• Plan navigation and product discovery experiences.
• Determine page structure and content hierarchy.
• Develop mobile-first ecommerce experiences.
• Identify customer questions and objections that need to be addressed throughout the site.
• Determine how products, collections, offers, and merchandising should be presented.
• Translate business goals into thoughtful ecommerce experiences.

You should be able to explain why every important element exists on the page.

UX/UI Design

Translate strategy into polished ecommerce experiences in Figma, including:

• Wireframes
• Homepage design
• Product detail pages
• Collection/PLP experiences
• Navigation and mega menus
• Search and filtering
• Cart and mini-cart experiences
• Landing pages
• Promotional pages
• Subscription experiences
• Bundles
• Upsells and cross-sells
• Account/customer experiences
• Supporting content and educational pages
• Mobile and desktop responsive states
• Design systems and reusable components

Your work should be visually excellent—but visual aesthetics should never come at the expense of usability or conversion.

Conversion Rate Optimization

Identify opportunities to improve conversion using quantitative and qualitative customer behavior, including:

• Shopify performance data
• GA4
• Microsoft Clarity
• Heatmaps
• Scroll maps
• Session recordings
• Funnel behavior
• Landing-page performance
• Device-level behavior
• Conversion patterns
• Customer feedback
• Existing testing results

Use that information to develop specific hypotheses, rather than simply applying generic ecommerce best practices.

DTC Ecommerce Strategy

Understand how website experience interacts with:

• Paid acquisition
• Meta and Google traffic
• Organic search
• Email/SMS
• Landing pages
• Promotions
• Product launches
• Merchandising
• Bundling
• Subscription
• Loyalty
• Reviews and social proof
• AOV
• Upselling and cross-selling
• Retention
• Customer lifetime value

We don’t expect you to personally manage these channels. We do expect you to understand how they affect the customer’s website experience.

Shopify Expertise

You don’t need to be a Shopify developer, but you need enough technical understanding to design experiences that can actually be built.

You should understand:

• Shopify themes
• Sections and blocks
• Product and variant structures
• Collections
• Metafields/metaobjects
• Search and filtering
• Shopify Markets
• Subscription functionality
• Shopify apps and integrations
• Product recommendations
• Cart functionality
• Responsive behavior

Developer Handoff & Build Review

Your involvement doesn’t end when the Figma file is approved.

Responsibilities include:

• Maintaining clean and organized Figma files
• Creating reusable components and design systems
• Documenting important interaction behavior
• Providing responsive/mobile specifications
• Answering developer questions
• Reviewing builds against approved designs
• Identifying discrepancies
• Evaluating whether implementation preserves the intended UX
• Collaborating with developers when technical limitations require alternative solutions

We’re looking for someone who treats the live website as the finished product—not the Figma file.

Client & Team Collaboration

Be comfortable:

• Participating in client discovery
• Asking thoughtful questions about the client’s customers and business
• Presenting UX concepts
• Explaining design decisions
• Receiving client feedback without blindly implementing every request
• Distinguishing between preference and genuine UX concerns
• Collaborating with strategists, developers, and Client Success Managers
• Clearly documenting decisions and requirements

You need to be able to confidently explain: “Here’s what we’re recommending, here’s why, and here’s the evidence or reasoning behind it.”

What We’re Looking For

• 5+ years of professional UX/UI or digital product design experience
• Significant experience designing DTC ecommerce websites
• Deep understanding of Shopify
• Advanced Figma proficiency
• Strong understanding of ecommerce CRO
• Excellent visual/UI design ability
• Strong UX and information architecture skills
• Mobile-first design expertise
• Experience designing PDPs, PLPs, navigation, cart, and other core ecommerce experiences
• Experience using behavioral analytics tools such as Microsoft Clarity, Hotjar, or similar
• Understanding of GA4 and ecommerce analytics
• Experience developing CRO hypotheses from data and customer behavior
• Experience designing landing pages for paid acquisition
• Understanding of A/B testing methodology
• Strong developer handoff experience
• Experience reviewing implemented websites against approved designs
• Excellent written and verbal English communication
• Ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously

Agency experience is strongly preferred. Experience working across multiple DTC verticals is a major plus.

What We Care About More Than Years of Experience

We’re looking for someone with judgment.

A beautiful portfolio is not enough for this position. During our interview process, we’ll ask you to explain the customer behavior, business objective, data, and conversion rationale behind your design decisions.

We want someone who goes beyond “I’d make this section cleaner” and can identify the customer problem, evidence, hypothesis, and intended outcome behind a recommendation.

You’ll Probably Love This Role If…

You’re fascinated by why people buy things online.

You notice friction that other people don’t. You love beautiful design but don’t believe beautiful automatically means effective. You watch session recordings and immediately start forming hypotheses. You want access to the data before redesigning something. You think about mobile before someone reminds you to.

You’re comfortable challenging an assumption when customer behavior tells you something different. You enjoy collaborating with developers and understanding what’s technically possible.

You’re capable of taking a project from “Here’s the brand and the problem we’re trying to solve” to “Here’s exactly how I believe the ecommerce experience should work—and here’s why.”

This Role Probably Isn’t For You If…

• Your experience is primarily graphic design or brand design
• Your portfolio consists primarily of marketing sites rather than ecommerce
• You need detailed wireframes before you can begin designing
• You primarily design based on visual inspiration rather than customer behavior
• You haven’t designed complex Shopify/DTC experiences
• You’re uncomfortable working with analytics or behavioral data
• You consider CRO primarily changing button colors or copying competitor patterns
• You prefer handing off a Figma file and moving immediately to the next project
• You aren’t comfortable explaining your design decisions to clients
• You’re looking for freelance work alongside several other full-time clients

Schedule & Availability

This is a full-time position.

Candidates must be available and actively working during Forge Digital Marketing’s standard working hours:

8:00 AM–4:00 PM Central Time, Monday–Friday

Because this role collaborates closely with our Client Success, strategy, and development teams, consistent overlap during these hours is required.

This position is not intended to be combined with another full-time position during Forge working hours.

Application Requirements

Along with your resume or LinkedIn profile, please submit:

1. Your ecommerce UX/UI portfolio. Identify which projects you personally owned and what portions of each project you were responsible for.
2. Show us the strongest DTC ecommerce experience you’ve designed. Briefly explain the business/customer problem, your role, what you changed, and why you made those decisions.
3. Tell us about a design decision you made based on customer behavior or analytics. What data did you have? What did you observe? What hypothesis did you develop? What did you change?
4. Tell us about your Shopify experience. Approximately how many Shopify stores have you designed, and what types of projects were they?
5. Tell us about your CRO experience. Which analytics, behavioral analysis, and testing tools have you personally used?
6. You’ve been asked to redesign a Shopify product page that’s converting poorly. Before opening Figma, what would you want to investigate?
7. Tell us about a time you disagreed with client feedback on a UX decision. How did you handle it?
8. Are you able to work full-time from 8:00 AM–4:00 PM Central Time, Monday–Friday?