Staff/Principal Product Designer (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

At Skylight, product designers play a critical role in understanding the problem space, identifying opportunities, and developing solutions using a lean-agile approach. Product designers are the primary user advocate on their team and engage in continuous research throughout the product life cycle. Working end-to-end from concept to implementation, product designers conduct research, facilitate design activities, and ensure the product team is building the right thing.

In this role, you’ll be part of a major modernization effort at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). You’ll collaborate with product, engineering, security, and data teammates to deliver secure, accessible, and user-centered services at enterprise scale. You’ll focus on turning insights into designs that are built, adopted, and sustained — and you’ll help federal partners build lasting design practices and systems they can carry forward.

What you’ll do

• Partner with product managers, engineers, and researchers to shape product strategy and ensure solutions meet user needs
• Plan and conduct research to uncover needs, policies, and operational constraints, then synthesize findings into actionable insights and artifacts
• Define end-to-end flows and interaction patterns that scale across complex systems and service journeys
• Create simple, thoughtful interfaces and evolve design systems with usability, accessibility, and maintainability in mind
• Prototype quickly and iteratively — from sketches to clickable mockups — to validate ideas and reduce risk
• Build accessibility, privacy, and security into designs from the start, including Section 508 accessibility standards and clear consent and data-handling patterns
• Align design decisions with measurable outcomes — define and track Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
• Document decisions, contribute to design systems, and facilitate workshops so government teams can sustain improvements after handoff

What we're looking for

Minimum qualifications

• Able to plan, synthesize, and share generative and evaluative research to inform product and design direction
• Skilled at defining scalable, end-to-end flows that use intentional information architecture, common design patterns, and accessibility best practices
• Capable of creating clear, elegant interfaces and explaining visual design decisions — typography, hierarchy, states, and microinteractions — with usability and maintainability in mind
• Familiar with structured design processes (e.g., double diamond) and able to use storytelling artifacts to align teammates and stakeholders
• Comfortable contributing to product strategy in a lean/agile environment — clarifying user needs, framing tradeoffs, and balancing user and business priorities
• Strong facilitation and communication skills with users, teammates, and executive stakeholders
• Commitment to capacity building — mentoring, documenting, and transferring knowledge so teams can 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 to spend time on‑site at HHS in Washington, DC — either by being based locally or by traveling regularly for in‑person work when it’s important

Nice-to-have qualifications

• Experience designing for modernization in complex or regulated environments
• Familiarity with security and compliance contexts such as the Authority to Operate (ATO) process
• Experience contributing to or maintaining design systems at scale
• Background working with technical counterparts to ensure clarity, trust, and inclusivity in complex workflows
• Experience working effectively on hybrid or distributed teams
• 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 role requires some in-person time in Washington, DC. Candidates based in the DC area should be able to work on-site at HHS periodically. Candidates outside the area are also welcome to apply, as long as they can travel to DC frequently for on-site collaboration. Relocation assistance to DC is available.

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 Product Designer at Skylight, the current salary ranges are as follows:

• Associate Product Designer: $90,000–$125,000
• Product Designer I: $120,000–$140,000
• Product Designer II: $135,000–$160,000
• Senior Product Designer: $150,000–$185,000
• Staff Product Designer: $170,000–$203,000
• Principal Product Designer: $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

• 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.