Senior Communication Designer

Steampunk•McLean, VA

11d

About The Position

Steampunk is seeking a Senior Communications Designer to build an enterprise communications strategy and operating model for a large federal advisory program. This role involves delivering an Enterprise Communication Strategy, standing up a "one voice" communications operating model with a shared calendar, standardized templates, and plain-language standards. The designer will build personas and stakeholder maps to segment audiences, design executive reports and dashboards, and apply Plain Writing Act standards to all content. They will assess communication messaging efficacy through surveys and stakeholder engagement, support piloting AI-assisted content drafting under approved governance, and build knowledge-transfer materials to transition the program to client staff.

Requirements

Ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. government security clearance
Bachelor's degree
8+ years of communications strategy or content design experience, including executive-facing reporting products
Demonstrated experience applying plain-language standards to complex technical/policy content
Experience building personas and stakeholder/audience segmentation for large, multi-audience communications programs
Experience wireframing and usability-testing communications products with executive audiences
Experience measuring communications effectiveness through surveys or feedback mechanisms and iterating based on results
Experience building communications knowledge-transfer materials to enable client teams to sustain a communications program independently

Nice To Haves

Federal communications experience, including familiarity with the Plain Writing Act
Experience piloting AI-assisted content workflows under a formal governance/human-review process

Responsibilities

Deliver an Enterprise Communication Strategy
Stand up a “one voice” communications operating model — shared calendar, standardized templates, plain-language standards
Build personas and stakeholder maps segmenting executive, oversight, workforce, and public audiences to tailor communications while preserving the “one voice” standard
Design executive reports and dashboards, wireframed and usability-tested with the leadership audience before automation
Apply Plain Writing Act standards to all communications content
Assess communication messaging efficacy through surveys and stakeholder engagement, continuously refining dissemination approaches based on findings
Support piloting of AI-assisted content drafting, tailoring, and summarization under approved governance, with mandatory human review before release, and never inputting sensitive, proprietary, PII, PHI, or CUI into an AI tool without authorization
Build and deliver communications knowledge-transfer materials, progressively transitioning routine operation of the communications program to client staff