1. What is a UX/UI Designer at athenahealth?

As a UX/UI Designer at athenahealth, you are at the forefront of creating a thriving ecosystem that delivers accessible, high-quality, and sustainable healthcare for all. This role goes far beyond simple interface design; it is about simplifying incredibly complex clinical and business information so that healthcare professionals and patients can make confident decisions. Whether you are working on the renowned epocrates medical reference app, optimizing digital marketing experiences, or integrating workflows into electronic health records (EHR), your work directly impacts patient care and business growth.

You will operate at the intersection of user insight, business strategy, and performance. athenahealth expects its designers to be strategic partners who lead by doing. You will map cross-channel journeys, leverage data fluency to understand user behaviors, and translate these insights into high-performing digital experiences. The scale is massive, and the problem space is uniquely challenging due to the regulatory and operational complexities of the healthcare industry.

Expect a highly collaborative environment where you will work closely with product managers, engineers, data scientists, and medical information teams. As a senior-level contributor—often operating at the Principal or Director level—you will also be responsible for mentoring fellow designers, championing human-centered design principles, and exploring innovative frontiers like integrating advanced AI technologies into clinical tools.

2. Getting Ready for Your Interviews

To succeed in your interviews, you need to understand exactly what the hiring team is looking for. Prepare to be evaluated across several core dimensions that are critical to the athenahealth design culture:

User-Centered Problem Solving Interviewers want to see how you untangle complex, ambiguous problems. In the healthcare domain, workflows are rarely straightforward. You will be evaluated on your ability to deeply understand user motivations, identify friction points, and design elegant, intuitive solutions that reduce cognitive load for clinicians or patients.

Strategic Design & Data Fluency athenahealth values designers who can seamlessly bridge the gap between user needs and business objectives. You must demonstrate how you use audience insights, behavioral research, and analytics to inform your design strategy and measure the impact of your solutions.

Cross-Functional Leadership Because you will be working alongside diverse teams—from marketing and MarTech to clinical experts and engineers—your ability to influence and align stakeholders is paramount. Interviewers will look for evidence that you can guide cross-functional teams using journey maps, prototypes, and experience blueprints.

Healthcare Domain Adaptability While you may not need a medical background, you must show a strong aptitude for learning highly technical, regulated, and specialized domains. Your interviewers will assess your curiosity and your framework for mastering complex industry constraints.

3. Interview Process Overview

The interview process for a UX/UI Designer at athenahealth is rigorous, deeply collaborative, and designed to test both your strategic vision and your executional craft. You will typically begin with a recruiter phone screen to assess baseline qualifications, compensation expectations, and mutual fit. This is followed by a deeper conversation with the hiring manager, focusing on your past experience, your design philosophy, and your alignment with the specific product zone (such as clinical content or digital marketing).

The most critical stage is the onsite or virtual loop, which revolves heavily around your portfolio presentation. athenahealth places a massive emphasis on storytelling—you will be expected to walk a panel of cross-functional stakeholders through 2-3 detailed case studies. Following the presentation, you will have a series of 1:1 interviews focusing on behavioral questions, cross-functional collaboration, and occasionally a whiteboarding or app critique session to see how you think on your feet.

Throughout the process, the tone is conversational but probing. Interviewers will frequently ask "why" to uncover the rationale behind your design decisions and how you handled pushback from engineering or product partners.

This visual timeline outlines the typical sequence of your interview stages. Use it to pace your preparation, ensuring your portfolio presentation is refined early on, as it sets the foundation for the deep-dive 1:1 sessions that follow. Keep in mind that specific rounds—like whiteboarding versus a take-home exercise—may vary slightly depending on the exact team and seniority level you are targeting.

4. Deep Dive into Evaluation Areas

Your virtual onsite interviews will break down your skills across several specialized areas. Understanding how to navigate these will be the key to securing an offer.

Portfolio Presentation & Case Studies

This is the cornerstone of your interview loop. athenahealth expects a polished, compelling narrative that highlights not just the final UI, but the messy middle of the design process. You are evaluated on your ability to articulate the business problem, the user research, the iterations, and the measurable outcomes.

• End-to-End Process – Show how you moved from initial discovery and journey mapping to high-fidelity prototypes and engineering handoff.
• Business vs. User Needs – Clearly explain how your design balanced the needs of the business with the needs of the user.
• Handling Constraints – Highlight projects where you faced technical limitations, tight deadlines, or complex regulatory constraints, and explain how you navigated them.
• Advanced concepts – For Principal or Director roles, showcase how your design strategy influenced the broader product roadmap or organizational goals.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "Walk us through a project where your initial design hypothesis was proven wrong by user research. How did you pivot?"
• "Explain a time when you had to design a complex workflow for a highly specialized user base."
• "How did you measure the success of the project you just presented?"

Cross-Functional Collaboration & Influence

Designers at athenahealth do not work in silos. This area evaluates your soft skills, stakeholder management, and ability to lead without formal authority. You must prove that you can partner effectively with engineers, data scientists, and product managers.

• Engineering Partnership – Discuss how you hand off designs, QA builds, and compromise on technical constraints without sacrificing user experience.
• Stakeholder Alignment – Explain your methods for getting buy-in from leadership or marketing teams using experience blueprints or prototypes.
• Conflict Resolution – Share specific examples of how you handled disagreements regarding the product vision or design direction.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "Tell me about a time you strongly disagreed with a Product Manager about a feature. How did you resolve it?"
• "How do you ensure your designs are implemented correctly by the engineering team?"
• "Describe a situation where you had to advocate for the user in the face of tight business deadlines."

UX Strategy & Ecosystem Design

Because athenahealth products span iOS apps, Android apps, websites, and EHR integrations, you are evaluated on your systems-level thinking. Strong candidates demonstrate how they create cohesive experiences across multiple touchpoints.

• Cross-Channel Continuity – Explain how you ensure continuity of message, design, and experience from initial awareness through conversion or clinical action.
• Journey Mapping – Demonstrate your ability to map complex user journeys that span different platforms and environments.
• Scalable Systems – Discuss your experience contributing to or building design systems that maintain consistency at scale.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "How do you approach designing a feature that needs to work seamlessly across a mobile app and a desktop web portal?"
• "Walk me through how you map out a user journey for a new product launch."
• "How do you balance maintaining consistency with the design system versus innovating for a specific user need?"

5. Key Responsibilities

As a UX/UI Designer at athenahealth, your day-to-day work is a blend of high-level strategy and hands-on execution. You will spend a significant portion of your time conducting and analyzing user research to deeply understand the behaviors and motivations of healthcare professionals or patients. This involves synthesizing complex data into actionable experience strategies.

You will be responsible for creating the artifacts that guide the product development lifecycle. This includes developing user journey maps, wireframes, interactive prototypes, and experience blueprints. Whether you are optimizing a cross-channel digital marketing campaign or refining a clinical decision-support tool within the epocrates app, your deliverables will serve as the source of truth for your cross-functional partners.

Collaboration is a constant. You will participate in daily stand-ups, design critiques, and strategic planning sessions with product managers, marketing teams, and engineers. For senior roles, you will also dedicate time to mentoring junior designers, evolving the overarching UX strategy, and exploring how emerging technologies—like AI—can be integrated to streamline clinical workflows and improve patient care.

6. Role Requirements & Qualifications

To be a competitive candidate for a UX/UI Designer role at athenahealth, you must possess a strong blend of technical craft, strategic thinking, and leadership capabilities. The company looks for seasoned professionals who can hit the ground running in a complex environment.

• Must-have skills – A robust portfolio demonstrating end-to-end UX/UI design, deep expertise in tools like Figma, strong data fluency, and a proven track record of cross-functional collaboration. You must have experience creating journey maps, wireframes, and high-fidelity prototypes.
• Experience level – These roles typically require significant experience (often 7+ years for Principal or Director levels) in product design, UX strategy, or experience design, ideally with a history of shipping complex, data-heavy applications.
• Soft skills – Exceptional communication and presentation skills are non-negotiable. You must be able to articulate your design rationale clearly, influence stakeholders, and lead cross-functional initiatives.
• Nice-to-have skills – Prior experience in the healthcare sector, familiarity with EHR systems, experience integrating AI technologies into user experiences, and a background in both clinical product design and digital marketing ecosystems.

7. Common Interview Questions

While you should not memorize answers, reviewing common questions will help you identify the patterns and themes that athenahealth interviewers prioritize. Use these to practice structuring your thoughts.

Portfolio & Process Questions

These questions test your actual design craft, your ability to tell a compelling story, and how you measure the impact of your work.

• Walk us through a project in your portfolio where you had to simplify a highly complex workflow.
• How do you decide when a design is "good enough" to ship?
• Tell me about a time you used quantitative data to inform a major design decision.
• Describe a project that failed or did not meet expectations. What did you learn?
• How do you approach designing for accessibility and inclusivity?

Behavioral & Leadership Questions

These questions assess your cultural fit, your resilience, and your ability to navigate the human elements of product development.

• Tell me about a time you had to influence a senior stakeholder who was resistant to your design recommendations.
• Describe a situation where you had to mentor or elevate the work of another designer.
• How do you handle receiving critical feedback on your designs from non-designers?
• Tell me about a time you had to juggle multiple high-priority projects with competing deadlines.
• Describe a time you stepped outside your defined role to ensure the success of a project.

Product Sense & Strategy Questions

These questions evaluate your business acumen and your ability to align user needs with company goals.

• How would you improve the user experience of booking a doctor's appointment online?
• If you were tasked with increasing user engagement for a medical reference app, what would your research plan look like?
• How do you balance advocating for the user with meeting aggressive business targets?
• What metrics do you typically look at to evaluate the success of a new feature?

8. Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Do I need prior healthcare experience to be hired as a UX/UI Designer at athenahealth? While prior healthcare or EHR experience is a strong nice-to-have, it is not strictly required. athenahealth values strong fundamental design skills and a demonstrated ability to learn complex, regulated domains quickly. Highlighting your experience with other complex, data-heavy enterprise software can be just as effective.

Q: What is the work-life balance like for this role? athenahealth is generally known for maintaining a healthy and sustainable work-life balance. While project cycles can have intense periods, the company culture respects personal time and encourages remote-friendly, flexible working arrangements.

Q: How long does the interview process typically take? The end-to-end process usually takes between 3 to 5 weeks, depending on interviewer availability and how quickly you can schedule your portfolio presentation. Recruiters are typically communicative and will keep you updated on your status.

Q: How important is the portfolio presentation compared to the 1:1 interviews? The portfolio presentation is arguably the most critical component. It sets the tone for the rest of the onsite loop. If you deliver a strong, articulate presentation that clearly demonstrates your business impact and design process, the subsequent 1:1 interviews will feel much more like collaborative conversations.

9. Other General Tips

• Focus on the "Why": In every answer, whether discussing a portfolio piece or a behavioral scenario, clearly articulate your rationale. athenahealth interviewers care just as much about your thought process as they do about the final output.

• Embrace Complexity: Healthcare is inherently complicated. Do not shy away from discussing how you have handled dense data, complex user roles, or regulatory constraints in your past work. Frame these challenges as opportunities for elegant design.
• Showcase Cross-Platform Thinking: Since athenahealth products live across web, mobile, and EHR integrations, explicitly mention how you design for scalability and consistency across different devices and environments.

• Quantify Your Impact: Whenever possible, use numbers to describe your success. Whether it is an increase in conversion rates, a reduction in task completion time, or a lift in user satisfaction scores, data fluency is highly valued here.

10. Summary & Next Steps

Joining athenahealth as a UX/UI Designer is an opportunity to tackle some of the most meaningful and complex challenges in the healthcare industry. You will be empowered to design experiences that directly support clinicians and improve patient outcomes, working alongside a passionate, cross-functional team.

The compensation data reflects the senior nature of these roles, with ranges typically spanning from $137,000 to$234,000 USD. Your specific offer will depend heavily on your interview performance, your level of experience (e.g., Lead, Principal, or Director), and your geographic location.

Your preparation should focus heavily on crafting a compelling narrative for your portfolio presentation. Practice articulating the business value of your designs, your strategies for cross-functional collaboration, and your methods for untangling complex user workflows. Enter your interviews with confidence, knowing that your unique design perspective has the power to drive real change in a critical industry. For more targeted insights, practice questions, and peer experiences, continue exploring resources on Dataford. You have the skills to succeed—now it is time to show them how you think.