Senior Service Designer (Remote)

RemoteDesign /Full-Time - Remote/ Remote

MO helps government leaders achieve their mission by designing intuitive and sustainable customer experiences that build trust and improve satisfaction. We use human-centered design (HCD) to modernize and transform user and employee experiences. We’re a small team of interdisciplinary creatives with mission, impact, and service to others deeply rooted in our DNA. We’re naive enough to believe we can change the world and bold enough to take the chance to do it.

We combine design thinking with continuous discovery and delivery methods to drive visionary, human-centered products to market. Our custom solutions range in size from completely revamping an entire application to refreshing small pieces of a larger product. Everyone at MO directly impacts the direction and success of the company, and we own our roles. We value integrity, curiosity, and courage, and we operate collaboratively and with accountability while consistently challenging each other in the pursuit of excellence. At MO, we delight in creating one-of-a-kind products and experiences. Your imagination is the only limit on what you can do here!

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 your work and through your design and technical expertise you will improve the lives for Veterans, Caregivers, Survivors and Family Members by reducing barriers to accessing care and benefits within the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). If you have experience integrating HCD practices into the deployment and adoption of impactful, scalable digital services and enjoy simplifying complexity into intuitive experiences, we’d love to hear from you. A passion for our mission and civic design is a must-have. 

In this position, you will be working in a small, cross-functional team of Researchers, Designers and Product Managers to understand and synthesize the frontend and backend experiences and systems to service customer needs, strategize how this information can serve a variety of employee use cases, and design innovative ways to share this knowledge for impactful adoption in the VA. 

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 UX design/HCD matters. Facilitate strategic conversations, instill enduring UX practices within customer organizations, influence high-level design decisions, and cultivate long-term partnerships based on trust and aligned objectives.
• Discovery: Conduct thorough review of existing research outputs and technical documentation, sourced from various platforms (e.g., Slack, GitHub etc.), Map out frontend and backend experiences, including technical systems. Acknowledge the need to make informed assumptions in cases of knowledge gaps and collaborate with SMEs to review compiled questions and build on assumptions.  
• Prototyping, Testing, and Iteration: Iteratively integrate newly obtained information into diagrams and blueprints. Refine these, informed by specific user needs in diverse use cases for the information. Address challenges related to achieving the appropriate level of detail in blueprints and identifying the relevance of systems to the supported blueprint. Determine critical paths, assess whether systems need abstraction or decomposition, and prioritize areas where further investigation is needed.
• Performance Metrics and Organizational Development: Collaborate with the team in creating and implementing strategies for the adoption of data-driven frameworks and evaluating the impact and effectiveness of design solutions, catalyzing 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 Are 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, UX design, systems architecture, wireframing and prototyping, service design, usability testing and/or organizational change leadership.
• Technical Command: Understanding of complex technical applications, capable of communicating and collaborating with the development team, interpreting and expanding on technical documentation and diagrams. Past experience in software development is nice to have.
• Specialized Toolset: Experience using modern design and collaboration tools (such as Figma, Sketch, Adobe Creative Suite, Mural, and Miro), agile methodologies, and tool-sets such as GitHub/ZenHub to track user stories. 
• 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.

• For your application, please include a portfolio or case studies that showcase your expertise in delivering impactful design solutions, interpreting software systems, complex project leadership, and strategic design thinking.

$120,000 - $135,000 a year

In support of the Colorado Equal Pay Transparency Act, and others like it across the country, MO's job descriptions feature the starting range we reasonably expect to pay to candidates who would join our team with little to no need for training on the responsibilities we've outlined above. Actual compensation is influenced by a wide range of factors including but not limited to skill set, level of experience, and responsibility.

MO’s Employee Value Proposition 

A fun, dynamic working environment with an energetic and diverse team

A REMOTE first work environment

An inclusive culture where everyone is welcome

Competitive compensation commensurate with experience

Opportunities for career growth

Full health benefits (medical, dental, vision)

401K plan 

Unlimited Paid Time Off (PTO)

Short- and Long-Term Disability 

Life Insurance (company sponsored)

All MO leaders are expected to lead with humility, embody our core values in their leadership, and to hold their team accountable to the same. MO leaders are expected to ensure we are always growing by tackling hard problems, being strategic, and learning from others.

MO is an equal opportunity employer, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration 

for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or veteran status.

We value diversity and inclusion and encourage all interested candidates to apply. If you have more experience beyond what is detailed here, we’d be happy to take a look. If you meet most but not all of the requirements, we still want to hear from you.