What is a UX Engineer and Do You Need One? A Comparison to UX Designer

When you develop a SaaS product, the assistance of UX experts is immeasurable. You simply cannot expect to create a great user experience without them. But the roles and responsibilities of various ux professionals may sometimes be confusing.

For instance, terms like UX designer and UX engineer are often used interchangeably. But what is a UX engineer and what do they do, exactly? What are similarities and differences between UX designer and engineer? And most importantly, when do you need one?

If you're developing a SaaS product, you have to answer all these questions. As a pragmatic design agency, we have both UX designers and UX engineers, and we sure know the difference between them. So, let us explain what UX engineers and designers are, and how their roles relate to technical feasibility, along with who you need to hire for your project!

What is a UX engineer?

A UX engineer (UXE) is the glue between design and development. They are experts who ensure user-friendly designs, grounded in design principles,  don’t fall apart when translated into code. UX engineers combine an understanding of UX principles with strong front-end development skills, making the final product look and feel exactly as intended.

In practice, that means UX engineers take wireframes and prototypes and turn them into production-ready UI components. Where a UX designer might hand off a beautiful mockup, a UX engineer ensures that what ends up in the browser actually matches the vision, down to the last pixel and interaction nuance.

They're also the ones who often maintain and scale design systems, keeping everything consistent no matter how many screens or states your app has.

When to add a UX engineer to the team

Not every project needs a UX engineer. But if your SaaS product is growing and your design-to-dev handoffs are starting to crack at the seams, it might be time to bring one in, particularly to collaborate with your engineering teams and make sure your UX design requirements are properly addressed.

Here are a few signs that you could use a UXE on board:

• You’ve got a great design team, but the final product rarely matches the mockups. UX engineers help bridge that gap and make the transition from Figma to code seamless.

• You’re building a design system. Maintaining consistency across dozens of components and screens is no joke. A UXE can own the technical side of the system and make it scalable.

• Your developers spend too much time fiddling with front-end UI tweaks. That’s exactly what a UX engineer is here to take off their plate.
• Your app is getting complex. If your product involves intricate interactions, animations, or multi-step flows, UX engineers ensure they’re usable and performant.

If you’re still small and moving fast, a UX designer with some coding skills might be enough. But as your team and codebase grow, having a dedicated UXE with the right ux skills and soft skills can seriously level up your product quality and speed.

What is the difference between UX designer and UX engineer?

Let's start by addressing the elephant in the room. What's the difference between a UX designer and UX engineer? Both roles are important for the project's success, but their approach and skill sets are different. Here's why.

In a nutshell, UX designers focus on creating user-centric products, employing design principles, user research, wireframing, prototyping, and user testing to ensure the final product meets the user's expectations. On the other hand, a UX engineer's role is to apply engineering principles to the design of user experiences. This term is often used to emphasize their involvement in the technical implementation of the design.

Now, let's break down the comparison in a bit more detail.

UX designer and UX engineer responsibilities 

In one sentence, designers concentrate more on user experience, while engineers are more concerned with the technical side (duh). Let's have a closer look.

UX designers remain user-centric

Design teams' main job is creating intuitive products that prioritize the needs and desires of the users. They strive to make the product visually appealing, easy to use, and enjoyable to interact with. By conducting user testing and understanding user behaviors, preferences, and pain points, UX designers can craft designs that users find pleasant to operate with.

UX engineers focus on implementation 

A user experience engineer takes care of the technical implementation of the design. They work closely with the development team to ensure that the design can be effectively translated into functional code.

UX engineers pay special attention to the project's technical requirements and constraints. They make sure that the design is implemented in a way that maintains the product's functionality and meets performance expectations. This involves considerations such as scalability, responsiveness across different devices, and compatibility with various browsers or platforms, integrating principles of software engineering .

UX designer vs UX engineer required skills

In reality, there's often some overlap, and the roles are not as clear-cut. Still, there are basic requirements specific to the two types of experts. 

What UX designers do

• User research. UX designers are experts in understanding users and translating their needs into intuitive design solutions. They conduct user research to gain valuable insights into user behaviors, preferences, and pain points. This research helps them make informed design decisions that align with user expectations.

• Wireframing. When it comes to visualizing the design, UX designers create wireframes, which are like blueprints that outline the layout and structure of the product. These wireframes provide a clear framework for the user interface without going into specific visual details.

• UX prototype. To bring the design to life and ensure its usability, UX designers build an interactive prototype. Prototypes allow users to experience and interact with the design, providing valuable feedback that helps refine the user experience.
• User testing. UX designers also conduct user testing sessions to observe how real users interact with the design. By watching users navigate through the product and collecting their feedback, designers identify areas of improvement and make iterative changes to enhance usability.

What UX engineers do

• Coding. UX engineers possess coding skills and technical know-how to implement the design effectively. They are skilled in languages like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. An engineer builds functional and interactive web interfaces with the help of these languages.
• Software architecture. In addition to coding, UX engineers must have knowledge of software architecture. They understand how different components of a system interact with each other, considering factors like scalability, performance, and maintainability. This ensures that the design aligns with the technical requirements of the project.

• Technical implementation. Working closely with developers, UX engineers provide guidance and collaborate on the technical implementation of the design. They bridge the gap between design and development, ensuring that the design is accurately translated into functional code.
• Design system integration. UX engineers also focus on integrating the design into a design system or component library. This promotes consistency and efficiency by enabling the reuse of design elements across different parts of the product, creating a cohesive user experience.

UX designers vs engineers collaboration team  

To deliver a well-designed and functional product, UX designers and UX engineers each rely on strong cross-functional collaboration, but with slightly different circles of teammates.

UX designers 

UX designers are deeply involved in the discovery and ideation phases, which means they often work with:

• Project managers, to align design work with business goals and timelines.
• Stakeholders and clients, to gather requirements and feedback.
• Business analysts, to understand user needs and define product scope.
• Developers, to ensure the design is feasible and to hand off specs and assets.

They’re the ones asking “what do users want?” and turning those insights into wireframes, flows, and prototypes.

UX engineers 

Once the design direction is set, UX engineers step in to ensure effective responsive design and make it real. They collaborate with:

• Front-end developers, to code and refine UI components.
• Back-end developers, to ensure smooth integration between UI and business logic.
• QA engineers, to fix interaction bugs and refine performance.
• Designers, to review the implementation and polish the visuals and interactions.

They’re the ones asking, “How do we make this work perfectly across browsers, screens, and devices?” — without compromising the design vision.

A typical UX engineer workflow

While UX designers focus on shaping the user experience, UX engineers are the ones who bring those experiences to life in code. Their workflow sits at the intersection of design and development, translating static mockups into interactive, performant interfaces through effective interaction design . Let’s walk through the typical steps a UX engineer takes from kickoff to launch.

• Gathering requirements. The UX engineer begins by collaborating with UX designers, project managers, and stakeholders to understand the project requirements. They clarify the technical aspects of the design, discuss functionality, integrations, and technical constraints.
• Technical planning. Based on the project requirements, the UX engineer creates a technical plan. They consider factors such as software architecture, development frameworks, and technologies that will be used to implement the design. They identify potential technical challenges and devise strategies to overcome them.

• Collaboration with UX designers. The UX engineers collaborate with designers to ensure a smooth transition from design to development. They clarify design specifications, interaction details, and ensure that the design is technically feasible. They provide input on design elements that may impact performance or implementation.
• Front-end development. The UX engineer starts the front-end development process, using coding languages like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to turn the design into functional web interfaces. They pay attention to details like layout, responsiveness, and user interactions to create a seamless user experience.
• Integration and back-end development. Depending on the project requirements, the UX engineer may collaborate with back-end developers to integrate the front-end design with the back-end infrastructure. They ensure smooth data flow, functionality, and seamless interactions between different components of the system.
• Testing and iteration. The UX engineer performs testing and quality assurance to identify and resolve any technical issues or bugs. They collaborate with the development team to address feedback and iterate on the implementation based on user testing and design refinements.

• Collaboration with developers. Throughout the development process, the UX engineer collaborates with other developers, such as front-end developers, back-end developers, quality assurance engineers, and system administrators. They communicate technical requirements, address integration challenges, and so on.
• Documentation and maintenance. The UX engineer creates documentation, such as coding guidelines or component libraries, to ensure consistency and facilitate future development efforts. They may also provide technical support and maintenance, addressing any issues that arise post-launch.

Skills to look for in a UX engineer

UX engineers wear many hats, so finding the right one means looking for a mix of technical expertise and design sensitivity. You're not hiring just another front-end developer. UX experts need to understand what makes a great user experience and how to build it.

First and foremost, a solid grasp of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript is a must. That’s their bread and butter for turning designs into fully functional interfaces. Familiarity with modern frameworks like React or Vue is often expected, especially in SaaS environments.

But technical skills alone aren't enough. A good UX engineer has an eye for detail. They should understand spacing, hierarchy, accessibility, and responsive behavior, not just how it looks, but how it feels to use.

Communication skills are another big one. UX engineers often sit between designers and developers, translating the needs of both sides. If they can’t explain why a certain layout doesn’t scale well across breakpoints or suggest a better alternative, collaboration will suffer.

And finally, bonus points if they’ve worked with design systems before. Maintaining a consistent experience across a growing product is no small feat, and engineers who can build scalable UI components and utilize modern design software bring a lot of long-term value to the team.

A typical UX designer workflow

There are various design tools and methodologies UX designers can follow: human-centered design or design thinking (spoiler alert: you can actually combine them!!), design thinking vs design sprint, agile, and brainstorming strategies. At Eleken, we most often follow the design thinking methodology, but tend to use it more as a guideline rather than a strict set of rules.

With this framework, a UX designer's workflow will roughly be as follows:

• Empathize. The UX designer conducts user research, interviews, and observations to gain a deep understanding of the target users, their goals, motivations, and pain points. This step helps the designer develop empathy for the users and uncover valuable insights.

• Define. Building on the research findings, the UX designer defines the problem or opportunity. They analyze the data collected during the Empathize phase and transform it into user personas, user journeys, and problem statements. This step helps the designer gain a clear understanding of what needs to be solved or improved.

For example, he's a customer journey map we created for Process Place redesign after we realized the messy and repetitive workflow was their main pain point. Visualizing it in such a way helps to streamline the user journey and ensure it's smooth and frictionless.

• Ideate. In this phase, the UX designer generates a wide range of ideas to address the defined problem. They facilitate brainstorming sessions, create sketches, or use other ideation techniques to encourage creative thinking. The emphasis is on quantity and variety, allowing for diverse solutions to be explored.

• Prototype. Based on the selected ideas from the ideation phase, the UX designer creates low-fidelity or high-fidelity prototypes. These prototypes serve as tangible representations of the design concepts. They can be interactive wireframes, mockups, or even functional prototypes, depending on the project's needs.
• Test. The UX designer conducts user testing sessions to gather feedback on the prototypes. Users are invited to interact with the designs and provide insights on their usability, effectiveness, and satisfaction. This feedback helps the designer refine and iterate on the design to enhance the user experience.

Here's an example of the screens we offered for A/B testing when designing Prift. We had two possible designs for a dashboard page that is supposed to help users make important financial decisions, so of course, we wanted to hear from them. Users preferred the second option, and we went with it. 

• Iterate. Using the insights gained from user testing, the UX designer gradually improves the design. They make necessary adjustments, enhancements, and refinements based on user feedback and the project goals. This iterative process ensures that the design evolves and continually meets the user's needs.

• Implement. The UX designer collaborates with engineering teams, developers, and other stakeholders to ensure the successful implementation of the design. They work closely with the development team, providing design specifications, assets, and guidance to bring the design to life. The designer maintains a clear line of communication to address any design-related questions or issues that arise during the implementation phase.

It might happen that some designs are simply not viable or require more time than the client has. When we were working with Astraea, for example, we created a design that solved all the client's problems. But it would've taken a long time to implement, and the client needed faster results to demonstrate the product to stakeholders. So, we focused on the little details we could improve immediately, and achieved great results nevertheless. 

• Evaluate. After the design is implemented and released, the UX designer evaluates its performance. They collect user feedback, analyze user metrics, and assess the design's impact on key performance indicators. This evaluation helps validate design decisions, identify areas for improvement, and inform future iterations or updates. 

Essential skills for UX designers

UX designers are the ones making sure your product is usable, but actually makes sense to your users. To do that well, they need a solid toolkit of research, strategy, design skills, and project management capabilities.

Research is the foundation. A strong UX designer knows how to dig into user behavior through interviews, surveys, and usability tests. They ask the right questions and know how to turn vague feedback into actionable insights.

Next comes the ability to translate those insights into structure. Think wireframes, user flows, and information architecture. It’s not just about putting elements on a screen. It’s about guiding users toward their goals without making them think too hard.

Visual design also plays a role, even if it’s not their core responsibility. A UX designer should understand layout, contrast, and typography well enough to create intuitive, attractive interfaces or at least speak the same language as a UI designer.

And of course, they need to be comfortable with iteration. That means working fast, testing often, and being okay with throwing things out and starting over. No ego, just constant improvement.

The best UX designers also collaborate like pros. They need to explain their ideas to stakeholders, give and receive feedback from the UX team and developers, and stay aligned with product goals.

What UX specialist do you need to hire?

With a combination of their skills, UX and engineering collaboration results in a pleasant experience and a well-working product overall. That's all good in theory. But then reality strikes, especially in the context of the software development process .

When you're working with a smaller organization or have a project with a limited budget, hiring both a dedicated UX designer and a UX engineer might not always be doable. But you don't have to look for a UI/UX design engineer or any other unicorns during your hiring process . In most cases, it will be more than enough to bring in a UX designer with a little pinch of technical knowledge, rather than needing a dedicated ui engineer . These professionals are a valuable addition to any development team as they possess a combination of design, engineering skills, and technical expertise. They can work closely with developers, ensuring that the designs are implemented correctly.

One of the great things about having a UX designer with a technical background is that they can provide insights during the design phase that take into account feasibility and technical constraints. Their technical know-how allows them to make informed decisions early on, ensuring that the designs are practical and align with what can be realistically implemented. This proactive approach saves time and effort by avoiding major design modifications later in the development process.

Additionally, a UX designer with technical skills can contribute to optimizing the user experience from a technical standpoint. They can make informed choices about performance, responsiveness, and compatibility, ensuring that the final product not only meets user expectations but also meets the necessary technical requirements.

So, even with limited resources, considering a UX designer with technical knowledge can make a significant difference. If you feel that's your case, for more step-by-step guidance, check out our article on how to hire UX designers

At Eleken, our UX designers have vast experience of creating stellar user-focused products and collaborating with developers to make sure their vision can actually be implemented. So, if you're looking for UI and UX design services that can satisfy all your SaaS design needs, don't hesitate to contact us!