Senior Service Designer

OMERS Pensions Department is dedicated to exploring, identifying and validating new opportunities to deliver value to our pension members, employers, stakeholders and partners in the OMERS ecosystem. Our work is not confined to one team, one process, or a standard outcome. Rather, we are mandated with the task of helping OMERS optimize for today, and build for tomorrow.

Why Service Design specifically? 

As we deliver on this mandate, you will be an expert in the practical and creative application of human-centered design and service design methodologies, with the goal of improving and developing new processes, experiences, and services. You bring people together to surface deep user needs and translate them into exceptional end-to-end experiences.

Description 

Instructions for Submitting Your Application (Please Read Carefully) 

When you send in your application, make sure to provide these items:

1. Cover letter

2. Resume, with a link to relevant work sample that demonstrates your ability to solve complex problems (ideally within financial services or other regulated environments).

• Please link to a brief case study or sample of work (no more than 3 PDF pages or slides or webpage).
• Illustrate how you’ve used human-centered design methods to tackle these challenges. Be sure to describe the practices you applied and highlight your strengths (such as qualitative or quantitative research, service design, design strategy, or other areas).
• Strong communication is essential for all Service Designers at OMERS. Consider this case study/work sample your chance to show how well you can present your ideas clearly and effectively within just a few pages or slides.

Please remember:

• If you use AI tools in preparing your application or any work products, please let us know. Share some details about your approach—how do you use AI and what critical perspective do you bring?

What You’ll Do 

•  Lead and facilitate cross-functional workshops and co-creation sessions to frame problems, generate ideas, and align teams around a shared vision
• Own end-to-end service design initiatives, from discovery through to delivery, across digital, human, and operational touchpoints
• Plan and conduct research (qualitative and quantitative) to uncover member and employer, employee needs, behaviors, and pain points
• Synthesize insights into clear, actionable opportunities that balance member/employer value and business impact
• Create and evolve service artifacts such as journey maps, service blueprints, ecosystem maps, and user flows to drive alignment and decision-making
• Translate concepts into action by partnering with product, technology, and operations teams to shape roadmaps, feature development and future-state problem solving
• Design new service propositions that align user needs with strategic business objectives
• Champion and embed service design as a mindset and way of working across OMERS
• Influence stakeholders at all levels through clear storytelling, strong facilitation, and evidence-based recommendations
• Work collaboratively by bringing empathy, creativity, and a constructive mindset to highly collaborative engagements.

What You Bring 

• 5+ years of experience in service design, strategic design, CX, UXR, or a related field
• A strong history demonstrating end-to-end service design work, from research and insight generation to strategy and delivery
• Strong expertise in human-centered design methods, including research, synthesis, ideation, prototyping, and testing
• Proven ability to design and improve complex, multi-channel services that meet user needs and drive operational efficiency
• Strong systems thinking—understand how experiences connect to processes, policies, and organizational structures
• Confidence facilitating workshops and managing diverse stakeholders, including senior leaders
• Excellent visual and verbal communication skills, with the ability to bring ideas to life through artifacts such as journey maps and service blueprints
• Experience working in cross-functional, agile teams alongside product managers, developers, and business stakeholders
• A critical thinking and entrepreneurial mindset—comfortable with ambiguity and driven to solve complex problems
• Ability to synthesize and connect past research insights to present and future project initiatives.
• A successful candidate will be empathetic to the needs of others, curious about the world, creative in their approach to problem-solving, and eager to learn by doing.

Nice to Have 

• Experience in financial services, pensions, or other regulated environments
• Familiarity with tools such as Figma, Miro, Sprig, or similar survey tools
• Exposure to data-informed design, experimentation, or analytics
• Experience helping to build or scale service design practices