Job Description

Our Service Designers are breaking new ground at the Air Force, changing the way the Department of Defense builds software. We build, measure, and learn; creating war-winning software iteratively. No longer are we building off of multi-year plans with stacks of requirements.

Service Designers at Kessel Run balance user needs, organizational outcomes, and technical feasibility in order to build value quickly while still considering the big picture. Our teams are flat and balanced, with Developers, Designers, and Product Managers working in concert, empowered to build the software we know our warfighters need.

Day In The Life

A typical day as a Kessel Run Service Designer starts with a team stand-up to align on goals for the day. Service Designers pair with each other on a variety of design engagements that affect people throughout the organization. As a Service Designer you will conduct reserach to understand the underlying needs of your customers, lead co-creation workshops and run experiments to test the assumptions underlying your team’s proposed solutions to critical issues facing the branch..  Your work will impact the experience of hundreds of other members of Kessel Run, who in turn impact the work of thousands of Airmen across the globe.

You will work closely with other Product team members to understand your product’s problem space, understand the upstream and downstream system dependencies, and ensure that the team’s activities are aligned with the product roadmap. You empathize with users and advocate for them by synthesizing their feedback and creating an intuitive user experience . You have some product experience, but also  a growth mindset and take feedback well.

Who You Are

• You have 3-5 years experience in a service design, user experience, or product design role or had the responsibilities required for such a role
• You have led design on your product team across the entire product lifecycle (everything from discovering and defining the problem to iterating on a product in production)
• You have experience defining the vision for the user experience and involve teammates in the design process
• You have experience advocating for user value and balance that against business value, portfolio value, and technical complexity
• You have experience leading collaborative or co-creative workshops with a diverse audience.
• You are skilled at prototyping in various digital and non-digital fidelities and making evidence based design decisions based on research insights
• You have worked with your product team to define product vision, strategy, roadmap, and backlog
• You seek user feedback constantly and incorporate findings into product roadmap while balancing when you can build in risk
• You have led both exploratory and evaluative research studies
• You have mapped user experiences in journey maps, value stream maps, service blueprints or similar
• You can explain the basic principles of User-Centered Design (UCD) and user research processes to team members, colleagues, and customers
• You have experience making your design and research work visible and trackable
• You have strong written and verbal communication skills
• You are comfortable traveling to meet users and stakeholders and can represent both the team and Kessel Run during work trips when necessary
• You have a growth mindset and love working in a fast-paced agile environment
• You are a U.S. citizen and are eligible to obtain a U.S. Security Clearance (see eligibility requirements here)

Key requirements:

• Comfort with technical concepts is a plus
• Familiar with de-conflicting and unblocking cross-product tracks of work so that teams can work more autonomously
• You are eligible for a security clearance
• You are comfortable with domestic traveling when there isn’t a pandemic
• You are a U.S. citizen and are eligible to obtain a U.S. Security Clearance (see eligibility here)
• Experience using Gitlab or similar collaboration tool
• Must have a portfolio highlighting your design experience
• You are a U.S. citizen and are eligible to obtain a U.S. Security Clearance (see eligibility requirements here)

This is a Federal civilian service position within the United States Air Force. We are hiring at the equivalent of a GS-12 up to GS-13 level for this position. This means you can expect a base salary of $66,829 to $103,309 multiplied by your locality rate, based on your experience. You can find your locality definition here and see the pay tables for the GS scale here. Our headquarters is located in Boston, MA; for a Boston-based employee, this would translate to a range from $86,283 to $133,382.

We also provide paid time off, health, and retirement benefits. There are advancement opportunities to promote to more senior levels after hiring.

We understand that there is no such thing as the ideal candidate for any job and we believe in empowering people to learn and grow throughout their careers. We encourage any applicant who is interested in making an impact in the Department of Defense to apply to this position regardless of background and qualifications.

How to Apply

Job Types: Full-Time.

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