Research & Design Lead (HHS)

About Skylight

Skylight is a digital consultancy using design and technology to help government agencies deliver better public services. We’re at the forefront of a civic movement to reinvent how all levels of government serve families, patients, and many others in today's digital world.

If you want to play a part in driving this critical movement forward, we’d love for you to join our growing team of public interest technologists. The work we do matters.

About the job

As Research & Design Lead, you’ll shape and guide all design and research efforts for a major modernization initiative at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). You’ll set the vision for how design and research drive outcomes, ensuring services are user-centered, accessible, and sustainable. In this role, you’ll oversee a multidisciplinary team spanning product design, service design, content design, and user research. You’ll work side by side with product and engineering leaders to align strategy with execution, while creating the conditions for designers and researchers to do their best work.

Beyond delivery, you’ll focus on building capacity — establishing standards, playbooks, and systems that government teams can use long after our involvement. Your leadership will help ensure that modern design and research practices become a lasting part of how HHS delivers services to the public.

What you’ll do

• Provide leadership and direction for design and research across multiple work-streams
• Establish and maintain design standards, accessibility requirements (Section 508), and inclusive practices
• Develop and oversee research operations, ensuring ethical and representative participation
• Guide service and product strategy with artifacts such as blueprints, prototypes, and decision narratives
• Build and evolve design systems and content operations that support reuse and consistency
• Mentor and grow designers and researchers, while enabling federal partners to sustain improvements over time

What we're looking for

Minimum qualifications

• Experience leading multidisciplinary design and research programs from discovery through implementation
• Portfolio showing complex, multi-team work that led to measurable outcomes
• Knowledge of research methods and ability to translate insights into actionable design decisions
• Ability to set and maintain design quality standards, including accessibility (Section 508)
• Strong collaboration with product and engineering partners to align strategy and delivery
• Clear communication and facilitation skills with executives and stakeholders
• Commitment to mentoring and knowledge transfer so teams continue improving over time
• Ability to work successfully in a professional services environment
• Passion for creating better public outcomes through great government services
• A mindset and work approach that align with Skylight’s core values
• Ability travel for work from time to time 

Nice-to-have qualifications

• Experience delivering modernization in complex or regulated environments
• Familiarity with security and compliance contexts such as Authority to Operate (ATO) processes
• Experience scaling design systems or shared service patterns
• Background in measuring experience quality and service performance
• Experience working effectively on hybrid or distributed teams
• Ability to spend time on-site at HHS in Washington, DC — either by being based locally or by traveling periodically for in-person collaboration
• Prior experience working in the civic tech space

Don’t meet 100% of the criteria but think you can do the job? We’d love to chat anyway! We’re on a mission to build diverse teams, and studies have shown that women and marginalized folks are less likely to apply to jobs if they don’t check every box.

Other requirements

• All work must be conducted within the U.S., excluding U.S. territories. Some federal contracts require U.S. citizenship to be eligible for employment.
• You must be legally authorized to work in the U.S. now and in the future without sponsorship.
• As a government contractor, you may be required to obtain a public trust or security clearance.
• You may be required to complete a company background check successfully.
• Some of our available roles are on federal contracts that require a degree or additional years of experience as a substitute.

Position type

This is a full-time, exempt position.

Location

This is a remote-friendly role. You can be based anywhere in the U.S. Candidates in the Washington, DC area, or those willing to travel there periodically for in-person collaboration, are especially encouraged to apply.

Care package

Salary

We want to give you the most competitive salary possible. After all, you deserve it! To that end, we use the results of our interview process to determine what salary is most appropriate given your current level of seniority. For a Research & Design Lead at Skylight, the current salary ranges are as follows:

• Staff Research & Design Lead: $170,000–$203,000
• Principal Research & Design Lead: $180,000–$230,000

Benefits

Your well-being is important to us, so we focus on supporting you in a variety of ways:

• Medical insurance, dental insurance, vision insurance
• Short-term and long-term disability insurance
• Life and AD&D insurance
• Dependent care FSA, healthcare FSA, health savings account
• Dollar-for-dollar 401(k) match up to 10% of your salary with no vesting period
• Flexible paid time-off-policy (generally around 25 days per year), plus 11 paid federal holidays
• Up to 12 weeks paid-time-off for all eligible new birth, adoption, or foster parents
• Performance rewards, including annual salary increase, annual performance bonus, spot bonuses, and stock options
• Business development / sales bonuses
• Referral bonuses
• Annual $2,000 allowance for professional development
• Annual $750 allowance for tech-related purchases
• Annual swag budget of $100 to display your Skylight pride with some merchandise (hoodies, hats, and more)
• Dollar-for-dollar charity donation matching, up to $500 per year
• Flexible, remote-friendly work environment
• An environment that empowers you to unleash your superpowers for public good

Interview tips

We want you to have a great interview experience with us! Here are some tips to help you prepare for a successful interview:

• Visit our join page to learn more about how our interview process works.
• Check out our Career Pathways framework to learn more about the different roles within Skylight and the skills needed to do them.
• Please include a portfolio of 1–2 showcase projects with your application. Your portfolio can be anything from a website to a slide deck (whatever works for you). So that we can prioritize your application for consideration, please ensure that you either remove your access password to your portfolio or provide access details.
• If you’d like to request reasonable accommodations during the application or interviewing process, please contact our recruiting team at recruiting@skylight.digital.

We participate in E-Verify and upon hire, will provide the federal government with your Form I-9 information to confirm that you’re authorized to work in the U.S.

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, national origin, sex, religion, age, disability, veteran status, or any other category protected by applicable law.