Senior Service Designer

About the role 

As a Senior Service Designer, you will champion the user perspective within MCERT and the Planning System Transformation programme. Your role is critical in bridging the gap between complex legislative reform and the practical reality of how New Zealanders, councils, and iwi interact with the new system.

You will work closely with business analysts, solution architects, and subject matter experts to design end-to-end service experiences that make the new planning system simpler, faster, and fairer. Beyond just digitising paper processes, you will reimagine workflows to shift the system from a culture of risk aversion to a culture of yes, ensuring that digital tools provide certainty and transparency.

You will be responsible for mapping current and future states, identifying friction points in the consenting and planning processes, and prototyping solutions that work within a hybrid federated model. You will balance the needs of diverse users—from homeowners and developers to council planners and iwi—ensuring that the digital ecosystem is accessible, inclusive, and responsive to the unique environmental contexts of Aotearoa.

Working within the System Design and Innovation team, you will have a pivotal role in ensuring that the needs of different participants within the resource management system are accurately reflected in the assets you create. You will have extensive experience creating and facilitating workshops with diverse stakeholder groups, be comfortable working in ambiguity, and be confident in the approach required to achieve the desired design outcomes.

You’ll be accountable for:

Workshop planning and facilitation: creating the agenda for and facilitating workshops with different groups of stakeholders to effectively and efficiently achieve the desired outcomes for the workstream
Service blueprints and journey maps: visualise complex regulatory processes to identify opportunities for automation, simplification, and integration across central and local government systems
Prototyping and testing: lead the design and testing of key digital products to ensure they meet user needs before full technical build
Design standards: contribute to the creation of national data and design standards that ensure a consistent user experience regardless of which region a user is operating in
Stakeholder alignment: facilitate workshops with disparate groups (policy, legal, technical, and operational) to align on a shared vision for the digital service experience.

Skills and experience 

Proven experience in service design: demonstrated ability to design and deliver complex end-to-end services in a public sector or highly regulated environment. You can show how you have translated complex policy or business rules into intuitive human experiences
Human-centred design expertise: deep knowledge of design thinking methodologies, including user research, persona development, journey mapping, and service blueprinting
Workshop planning, facilitation and requirements capture: Experience creating and facilitating workshops and applying different research approaches to capture participant insights. Adept at theming insights and using these to create supporting design artefacts, including service blueprints
Understanding of digital transformation: experience working in large-scale digital transformation programmes. You understand how services need to be designed considering the people, process, and technology dynamics while being mindful of technology debt avoidance
Te Tiriti o Waitangi & Māori data sovereignty: understanding of Te Tiriti obligations in a digital context Experience in co-designing with Māori and understanding the principles of Indigenous data sovereignty is highly desirable
Federated/complex system experience: experience designing for systems where service delivery is distributed rather than centralised, understanding the friction between national consistency and local autonomy
Agile delivery: practical experience working in Agile environments, supporting product owners and development teams to ensure the user voice is maintained throughout the build cycle
Communication and influence: excellent storytelling and visual communication skills. You can translate user insights into compelling narratives that influence senior leadership and policy decisions
Government design awareness: familiarity with the NZ Government Web Standards, Accessibility Standards, and the Digital Service Design Standard is preferred.