Service Designer

Steampunk•McLean, VA

5d•$85,000 - $150,000

About The Position

Steampunk is seeking a Service Designer to guide clients through its Design Intelligence® framework and provide research and design foundations for portfolio optimization, data governance, and identity-modernization workstreams within a large federal advisory program. The role leads and facilitates discovery to uncover pain points and opportunities, serving as the voice of the user so user needs inform recommendations. The Service Designer conducts research, facilitates workshops and interviews, builds service blueprints and vision roadmaps, and synthesizes findings into recommendations that shape program strategy and future-state experience. The role also prototypes and tests governance artifacts and workflows, collaborates across a cross-functional Agile team, and ensures assigned workstream deliverables are consistently high quality.

Requirements

Ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. government security clearance.
Bachelor’s degree, preferably in Human-Centered Design, Service Design, or a related field.
At least 5 years of service design or UX research experience, including service blueprinting and journey mapping.
Portfolio demonstrating design process, methods, and craft across service design or UX research engagements.
Demonstrated experience with affinity diagramming, card sorting, and persona development.
Experience running usability testing and prototyping cycles with real end users.
Experience working within an Agile delivery framework and integrating research and design activities into sprint cadences.
Proficiency with design and research tools such as Adobe Creative Suite, Mural, and Lucidchart.
Strong research synthesis and facilitation skills.
Excellent written communication and presentation skills for conveying research findings and recommendations.
Experience collaborating on a multidisciplinary delivery team, including data, identity/security, and change-management specialists.

Nice To Haves

Experience applying service design methods in federal data governance, identity/access, or portfolio management contexts.
Experience with low- and high-fidelity prototyping tools.
Previous experience working as a consultant.

Responsibilities

Conduct process, technology, and organizational research to support portfolio optimization recommendations.
Facilitate discovery workshops and interviews to identify pain points and opportunities, define problem statements, and validate hypotheses with users and stakeholders.
Build frontstage/backstage service blueprints and vision roadmaps linking user-facing outcomes to supporting systems and investments.
Conduct empathy interviews and shadowing with data users, including analysts, stewards, and program staff, to map end-to-end data journeys.
Apply card sorting and persona development to shape catalog and metadata design around users’ search behaviors.
Synthesize research into insights and recommendations that inform program strategy and future-state experience vision.
Run low- and high-fidelity prototyping and usability testing on governance artifacts and workflows before enterprise rollout.
Build service blueprints across all four ICAM pillars: Policy, People, Process, and Technology.
Communicate stakeholder and user needs across a cross-functional Agile team.
Ensure deliverables across assigned workstreams are produced consistently and to a high standard.