Senior Service Designer

We are seeking a Senior Service Designer to join our Design Team. As part of the Design Team at Code for America, you will help transform how government services are delivered. Your work will demonstrate that design can create the conditions for generational, systemic change and help millions of people in need.

About the Role:

The Service Design Team operates with the following principles:

• Work with community
• Serve everyone with respect
• Change the system
• Start today

Read more about our design principles here.

Our service designers work on small and highly collaborative multidisciplinary teams to evaluate government services, prototype design interventions, facilitate workshops and co-design sessions, create actionable resources, and teach government how to apply human centered design to their programs and services.

In this role you will be a part of our Opportunity Accelerator (OA) program – a program that works with local governments to strengthen the wellbeing of individuals and foster thriving communities by improving economic mobility and promoting racial equity. This work is done in coalition with four additional organizations containing complementary expertise in supporting local governments. You should be comfortable leading, scoping, and planning design work on multiple projects as well as guiding your internal team on work prioritization based on desired outcomes & service designer capacity.

You’ll help provide clarity in an ambiguous space, working with many organizations and local governments. Your primary impact in this role will focus on helping the OA coach government stakeholders through a human-centered design process that prioritizes codesign with impacted populations, community based organizations, and service providers. This role will not be product-focused, but instead involve thinking strategically about systems change and how to impact longer-term equitable population-level outcomes by collaborating with partners to build connections with local governments across each jurisdiction.

The Senior Service Designer will report to a Design Manager or the VP of Design.

In this position you will:

• Facilitate change behavior: Advise government partners by advocating for a long-term vision and taking small, tangible steps toward that vision.
• Scope & plan service design work: Based on your program team’s desired outcomes, identify the appropriate activities, estimate capacity, and visualize and track progress.
• Locate and define problems: Identify the right questions, frame and reframe problems through an equity-centered approach, and drive clarity at all stages of a project.
• Visualize complexity: Create compelling journey maps, frameworks, and diagrams that inspire systemic improvements.
• Prototype and implement holistic services: Prototype and test different approaches that balance user needs, technology limitations, financial constraints, and policy realities.
• Build connections across silos: Convene and coach internal teams and external stakeholder and community groups through the human-centered design process.

About you: 

• At least 4 years of service design experience or related design experience in product, user experience, or human-centered design;
• A portfolio of service design work that outlines your design process, deliverables, and impact – we understand that formal portfolios may privilege some applicants over others. We’re open to receiving any examples of work you have, even if it is not a formal portfolio;
• Experience facilitating and running workshops and alignment sessions;
• Familiarity working within or alongside iterative software development practices;
• Demonstrated ability to design, test, implement, and measure multi-channel experiences that include a digital product delivery;
• Willingness to travel for research and client workshops (up to 40% of the time);
• We strongly encourage individuals impacted by the criminal justice system (individuals with criminal records, family members of individuals with criminal records, etc.) or who have participated in social safety net programs (SNAP, welfare, WIC, Medicaid, etc.) to apply.