Senior Service Designer

Overview

Are you looking to make an impact? We are looking for a Senior Service Designer who brings a systems and technical mindset to service and product design to support our client in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). In this position, you will be working in a small, cross-functional team of Human-Centered Design practitioners to understand and synthesize customer needs, strategize improved service delivery, and design innovative Drupal CMS solutions. If you have experience driving the product life cycle from proof of concept to product road mapping and execution and you’ve helped bridge gaps between customers and interdisciplinary teams, we’d love to hear from you.

How will you spend your time? 85% of your time will be spent on billable work, and roughly 15% of your time will be spent maturing our HCD practice at MO and mentoring more junior HCD team members.

Successful candidates will have a track record of being present as a capability leader in high-performing design teams at scale. The willingness to dive into ambiguity and build new systems and processes, sometimes from scratch, is essential, as is leading through influence within a matrixed environment. Previous experience working in a client services organization (i.e., consulting or a digital agency) is helpful but not required. A passion for our mission and civic design is a must-have.

What You’ll Do:

• Project Leadership: Lead and oversee complex engagements, ensuring the seamless integration of service design practices into overall project management. Contribute to shape program/project-level CX strategy, aligning user needs, business objectives, and technical capabilities to deliver exceptional user experiences.
• Stakeholder and Client Management: Interact with internal and external stakeholders on service design/HCD matters. Facilitate strategic conversations, instill enduring service design practices within customer organizations, influence high-level design decisions, and cultivate long-term partnerships based on trust and aligned objectives.
• Discovery: Using relevant human-centered design methods, develop and lead approaches to discovery that establish research objectives, directly involve users, and provide stakeholders with a deeper understanding of the environment (and its opportunities and constraints) as well as the key problems to solve.
• Prototyping, Testing, and Iteration: Guide teams in the strategic approach to co-design, testing, and iteration, ensuring designs meet organizational standards and objectives, and resonate deeply with end-users.
• Technical Writing and Training Experience: Working both with technical teams, as well as shaping the engagement and experience of the publishing community (“the user”). Ability to collaborate with teams who manage, edit and deliver content.
• Service Design Governance: Lead the efforts in refining and maintaining service design principles and best practices across the organization, working closely with product, design, and development teams. Ensure consistent and accessible experiences across all products and interfaces.
• Performance Metrics and Organizational Development: Define and drive the adoption of data-driven frameworks and evaluating the impact and effectiveness of design solutions, catalyzing organizational growth and innovation.
• Mentorship and design leadership: Work with the MO design team to build and mature a diverse and inclusive HCD Community of Practice with industry presence. Provide guidance and mentorship to more junior designers, fostering their growth and development within the team. Influence clients and stakeholders to embrace customer-centered design principles and practices.

What We’re Looking For:

• Design Mastery and Passion for Design for Change: 5+ yrs demonstrated expertise in human-centered design methodologies and practices contributing with technical expertise to complex digital service projects and navigating stakeholder relationships. Demonstrated commitment to social impact design.
• People-centric Advocacy: Extensive experience as a people (customer/user) advocate, with a strong command of accessibility, Section 508 compliance, and a nuanced understanding of the challenges posed by user research barriers in the public sector.
• Versatile Skill Set: Proficiency as a designer who can draw upon a breadth and depth of experience in at least five of the following capabilities: user research, information architecture, technical writing, UX design, wireframing and prototyping, service design, visual design, usability testing, content modeling, training, and/or design systems. Familiarity designing for Drupal CMS editorial experiences is a plus.
• Technical Command: Understanding of complex technical applications and capable of communicating and collaborating with technical teams. Familiarity with Agile software delivery, agile methodologies, and tool-sets such as GitHub/ZenHub to track user stories.
• Specialized Toolset: Experience using modern design and collaboration tools (such as Figma, Sketch, Adobe Creative Suite, Mural, and Miro).
• Consultative Mindset: Skilled in understanding client expectations, working as an agile team, managing and prioritizing multiple high-profile, medium-to-high complexity projects, and ensuring accountability in delivering against customer needs.
• Cross-Disciplinary System Implementation: Experience working with cross-functional teams of product managers, developers, service designers, researchers, and UX designers to ensure the successful implementation and adoption of deliverables, maintaining consistency and accessibility across civic tech products.

What Isn’t Required

• Specific Educational Background: Your qualifications matter more than where (or if) you went to school.
• Big-Name Employers: It’s not about having a well-known company on your resume; it’s about what you’ve accomplished.

What We’re Looking For

• Your Passion: We care about what drives you, whether it’s related to your career or personal interests.
• Thoughtful Perspectives: We value your insights on design, technology, teamwork, and processes.
• Problem-Solving Skills: We seek individuals who approach challenges with a solution-oriented mindset.
• Proven Delivery: We want people who know how to get things done, not just talk about it.
• Adaptability: Your ability to manage multiple priorities and switch contexts quickly is crucial.
• Commitment to Excellence: We look for people who aim to deliver outstanding results consistently.