Senior UX Researcher / Designer

Summary

Join Agile Six, a remote-first company, as a Senior UX Researcher/Designer to contribute to the development of VA.gov. You will lead user research, communicate your vision to stakeholders, and collaborate with cross-functional teams. This key personnel role requires expertise in various research methodologies and proficiency in design tools like Figma. The position demands strong communication, collaboration, and adaptability. You will work on impactful projects, using AI tools to improve efficiency. The role offers a competitive salary and comprehensive benefits.

Requirements

• 8+ years of experience working as UX researcher / designer or related position in collaboration with digital product teams (enterprise environment a plus)
• Ability to be autonomous, take initiative, and effectively communicate status and progress
• Portfolio illustrating your process and samples of native product design work driven by quantitative and qualitative user research
• Understand human-centered design, interaction design fundamentals, and UI design and research best practices, including accessibility
• Proficient in Figma and modern prototyping tools
• Experience successfully collaborating with cross-functional partners and other designers and researchers, seeking and providing feedback in an Agile environment
• Experience experimenting with and/or utilizing AI tools and services to design and create software, and a strong willingness to leverage AI where appropriate to improve outcomes
• Adaptive, empathetic, collaborative, and holds a positive mindset
• Has lived and worked in the United States for 3 out of the last 5 years

Responsibilities

• Lead user research efforts across a variety of research methodologies such as user interviews, heuristic evaluations, generative research, tree testing, card sorting and design thinking workshops
• Own the research process, including discovery, synthesis, documentation, and communication
• Communicate potential costs and tradeoffs of different processes and research approaches while working with incomplete requirements
• Stay up to date on emerging practices and technologies that support UX, and share these with the larger UX community at Agile Six when opportunities arise
• Clearly articulate your thought processes through verbal and written explanation, whiteboard, sketching, or quick mock-ups to small or large groups
• Create design deliverables at all levels of fidelity throughout the process, from early sketches to low fidelity wireframes to high fidelity prototypes
• Use the VA Design System and design with repeatable patterns across the portfolio. Collaborate with the Design System team when necessary around iteration and improvement of design system components
• Collaborate with the product manager and engineers to ensure implementation matches intent across all design components
• Keep UX work in sync with the product roadmap and flag delays or issues in research and design. Collaboratively create and evolve user stories and acceptance criteria with the product owner and wider Scrum team
• Work with team to identify and integrate AI-powered tools and services into the software design and development lifecycle to improve the efficiency and/or quality of UX deliverables and production code. Example services include, but are not limited to, Vercel V0, Dovetail, Figma AI tools and GitHub Copilot
• Communicate and collaborate with stakeholders and team members across a range of disciplines
• Support the practice of design and research within the larger company as needed through activities such as: Assisting in outreach, recruitment, and hiring efforts
• Occasionally participating in or otherwise supporting business development efforts, including code or design challenges, writing or reviewing proposal responses, etc
• Participating in communities of practice

Preferred Qualifications

• Familiarity with the US Web Design System
• Familiarity with Section-508 and WCAG 2.1AA Accessibility requirements, standards, and testing tools
• Experience developing knowledge of complex domain and systems
• Experience working with government agencies
• Ability to work across multiple applications, components, languages, and frameworks
• Experience working in a cross-functional team, including research, design, engineering, and product
• You are a U.S. Veteran

Benefits

• Self-managed work/life balance and flexibility
• Competitive and equitable salary (equal pay for equal work)
• Employee Stock Ownership (ESOP) for all employees!
• 401K matching
• Medical, dental, and vision insurance
• Employer paid short and long term disability insurance
• Employer paid life insurance
• Self-managed and generous paid time off
• Paid federal holidays and two floating holidays
• Paid parental leave
• Self-managed professional development spending
• Self-managed wellness days