Hire UX/UI Designers

Ideaware places senior UX/UI designers from Latin America on US product teams. Most are product designers who run research, design flows and deliver production-ready Figma files. You see vetted candidates within 48 hours, your pick starts 8–12 days after the first call, and they work US business hours. A senior designer costs $4,500–7,500 a month, with payroll, benefits and equipment included.

Design needs more live collaboration than most roles: critiques, stakeholder reviews, usability sessions with your customers. A designer on your hours can join those in real time, which an offshore designer eight hours away can’t.

What a UX/UI designer costs in the US

A US UX designer earns an average base salary of $93,892 in 2026, according to Built In. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports a $104,000 median for web and digital interface designers (May 2025), with the top 10% earning more than $201,550.

Benefits add 30% to employer compensation costs in US private industry (BLS, June 2026), before any recruiter fee.

	US in-house hire	Ideaware
Pay	$93,892 average base (UX designers)	$4,500–7,500 a month
Benefits, payroll tax, equipment	You pay on top	Included
Placement fee	Common with agencies	None
First candidates	Depends on your pipeline	48 hours

Counting benefits and fees, most teams save 40–60% against a comparable US hire. The developer cost guide covers each role we place.

The tools and methods our designers work with

Our designers work in Figma by default, build on your design system or create one, and hand off files developers can build from without guessing. Typical toolkit:

Design and prototyping: Figma with variables and auto layout, FigJam, Framer, ProtoPie for complex interactions
Research: user interviews, usability tests, surveys, analytics review in tools such as Amplitude, Mixpanel or Hotjar
Design systems: component libraries, design tokens, documentation, WCAG 2.1 AA checks
Handoff: Figma Dev Mode, annotated specs, working sessions with frontend developers
Platforms: responsive web, SaaS dashboards, iOS and Android patterns for mobile apps

How we vet UX/UI designers

We accept about 3% of applicants. Designers go through five steps: a portfolio review, a design challenge, a walkthrough of a past project, an English and communication interview, and reference checks with former managers and collaborators.

What we look for at each stage:

Portfolio: the problem, the research and the trade-offs behind the final screens, not only polished mockups
Design challenge: how the candidate frames a vague brief, which questions they ask, and what they cut
Research: planning and running a usability test, then turning findings into specific design changes
Systems thinking: extending an existing component library rather than drawing one-off screens
Handoff: states, edge cases, empty and error screens, and specs a developer can build from
Presenting: defending a decision to a skeptical stakeholder with evidence

You interview the finalists yourself and can ask for a paid or unpaid exercise of your own.

Product designer, UX researcher or UI designer: which hire do you need?

Hire a product designer who covers UX and UI when you have one or two designers across the product. Specialists make sense for bigger teams:

A research backlog nobody runs: ask for a UX researcher.
A design system that needs a dedicated owner: a UI designer paired with a React developer who builds the component library.
An MVP where design and build move together: a designer plus full stack developers, or an AI Pod if the product is AI-first.
Early-stage startup hiring its first team: see hiring developers for startups.

Frequently asked questions

How much does it cost to hire a UX/UI designer?

A senior designer through Ideaware costs $4,500–7,500 a month, all-in. A US UX designer averages $93,892 in base salary in 2026 (Built In), before benefits, payroll tax and recruiting fees. See the cost guide.

How fast can a designer start?

You see vetted portfolios within 48 hours. Most designers start 8–12 days after the first call.

Do your designers do UX, UI or both?

Most do both, which is the norm for product design roles. If you need a pure UX researcher or a pure visual designer, tell us on the first call and we match for that.

Can a designer build our design system?

Yes. We match you with designers who have built component libraries with tokens, variants and documentation in Figma. Pair them with a frontend developer so the Figma components and the coded ones stay in sync.

Can they run user research with our US customers?

Yes. Our designers run interviews and usability tests in English during US hours. You provide access to customers, and the designer plans the sessions, runs them and reports what to change.

What if the designer isn't a fit?

We replace them at no cost within the first 90 days. After that you can scale down with 30 days’ notice.

Get designer candidates in 48 hours →