Principal Service Designer

Interested in solving meaningful problems and transforming the journeys and experiences of millions of constituents interacting with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts government services? We’re looking for an experienced, collaborative, and purpose driven Principal Service Designer to join our UX and Service Design team at Massachusetts Digital Services. We need an empathic systems thinker and innovator, who thrives on understanding people and complex services and systems and harmonizing and streamlining experiences and journeys.

The Massachusetts Digital Service (Mass Digital), a division of The MA Executive Office of Technology Services and Security (EOTSS), partners with organizations across state government to transform how residents, visitors, businesses, and government agencies interact with the Commonwealth. Our mission is to design and deliver accessible/inclusive, seamless, effective, and secure digitally enabled end-to-end experiences that adapt to a person’s needs, so that every time they engage with any part of their government, they’re getting the most and best of the Commonwealth. In this full-time contract role, you’ll play a critical role on several key initiatives in the Commonwealth Digital Roadmapincluding:

• Supporting constituent life events and experiences (i.e. helping people navigate across state services and channels to get their needs met as part of a holistic life experience)
• Enabling omni-channel constituent engagement and communications (i.e., helping people seamlessly and successfully engage across channels and touchpoints as needed to communicate, exchange information, answer questions, and get help navigating state services)

You’ll collaborate with User Experience & Service Design team members, cross-functional teams, agency stakeholders, service providers, and constituents to design and deliver inclusive, equitable, and impactful digitally enabled end-to-end services and experiences. You’ll work “front stage” to engage with constituents to understand and map their journeys, experiences, and challenges as they interact with government services across digital and non-digital channels and touchpoints. You’ll work “backstage” to engage with agency stakeholders and service providers to understand and map their context (policies, workflows, systems, etc.) and challenges.

You’ll help identify, prioritized opportunities to improve digital/omnichannel journeys and design, prototype, and test solutions in collaboration with colleagues, partners, and constituents. You’ll also help us grow our service design practice and serve as an advocate, coach, and change agent, facilitating the adoption of a people centered service design mindset and approach across Mass Digital and agency partners.

This position is a full-time contract opportunity. The work schedule for this position is Monday through Friday, 9:00AM to 5:00PM EST, in a hybrid remote arrangement with 2-4 days per month spent at the primary work location: One Ashburton Place, Boston, Massachusetts 02108. Applicants should be located within reasonable commuting distance from the primary work location.

Key Responsibilities:

• Plan, lead, facilitate, and execute service design, experience research, and experience strategy, and work on key product/service /experience design workstreams within an agile, collaborative, cross functional environment
• Collaborate closely with interaction designers, content designers, experience researchers, engineers, product managers, agency service providers, and citizens to iteratively design, test, and refine effective and transformative digital and omnichannel citizen experiences
• Assess, map, and envision end-to-end experiences, journeys and solutions that blend digital and human touchpoints to support, build upon, and/or transform existing workflows
• Plan and conduct experience research to build an actionable understanding of people, journeys, and services to inform strategy, opportunity mapping, service design, and digital experience design
• Engage with diverse stakeholders to help facilitate shared understanding and alignment
• Create & refine service design artifacts (e.g. customer journey maps, scenarios, experience models, narratives, etc.) to aid the team’s understanding of constituent experiences and the people, channels, touchpoints, experiences, and processes involved in the delivery of government services
• Identify and help prioritize opportunities to harmonize, transform, and improve digital and omnichannel service experiences (both back-stage and front-stage) and support experiential moments that matter
• Create experience design prototypes of varying levels of fidelity to facilitate assessment, learning, and communication
• Help lead and grow our Service Design practice by refining our playbook, defining best practices, mentoring/coaching others, and facilitating learning and collaboration
• Contribute to product/service/experience strategy and planning and roadmap development.
• Facilitate the learning and adoption of a people centered, experience and service design mindset and approach within Mass Digital, EOTSS (Executive Office of Technology Services and Security) and by our partner agencies across the Commonwealth of Massachusetts government

Preferred Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:

• Eight (8) to ten (10) years of professional experience in service design and digital product design.
• Five (5) plus years of experience as a lead service designer in agile, collaborative digital product development environments
• Three (3) plus years of experience in complex government environments or analogous service and organizational environments
• Enthusiastic about solving problems facing public-sector agencies and promoting equitable access to public services using modern technology, design, and research practices
• Deep expertise in all facets of service design, experience research, and experience/design strategy
• Outstanding facilitation and consultation skills
• Extremely strong system thinking skills
• An in depth understanding of all facets of human centered design and digital/omnichannel service design and development
• Strong expertise in and commitment to accessible, inclusive and equitable design
• Outstanding coaching and mentorship skills
• Outstanding communication, storytelling, facilitation, consulting, and organizational change and navigation skills