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Senior Human-Centered Design (HCD) Subject Matter Expert

Remote/Hybrid if local to Maryland

Join us at Sparksoft, where we're not just another tech company—we're a catalyst for change. Our mission isn't just to offer IT solutions; it's to revolutionize the way you work. Here, passion isn't just a buzzword; it's the fuel behind groundbreaking ideas and transformative technologies. We serve a wide range of government clients, delivering impact that's felt across the nation.

Our true strength lies in our people. They're the problem-solvers and innovators consistently delivering extraordinary outcomes. With Sparksoft, you're not stepping into a routine job; you're joining a team committed to innovation and excellence. Our innovation extends beyond just delivering projects. Through our specialized Innovation Centers, we continuously refine our methods, ensuring we remain industry leaders.

We are Sparksoft!

ROLE & RESPONSIBILITIES: 

  • Develop Insights and Solutions: Interpret a diverse range of behaviors, attitudes, and mindsets of a variety of unique user groups, advocate for current and emerging user needs to both optimize product experiences and inform novel solutions (products, services, and business models). Track industry trends and cutting edge, trailblazing solutions to similar user needs and pain points.
  • Innovate Processes and Frameworks: Workshop and develop new industry-leading design processes, frameworks, and methods (for instance, in AI empowered processes, DesignOps, Design System Management) that accelerate the discovery of latent needs. Infuse best practices across teams for human-centered design within our organization.
  • Build Strong Relationships: Foster strong client, internal, and user relationships and collaborate effectively with internal and client stakeholders prioritizing user needs, wants within scope throughout the design process.
  • Collaborate and Communicate: Facilitate design-thinking sessions and discussions with clients, colleagues, external partners, but also other designers and researchers to translate research insights into actionable strategies. Assemble cross-functional teams, including engineers and product managers, to ensure final development deliverables exceed end-user needs. Lead internal brown bag sessions infusing our internal teams with all aspects of HCD.
  • Lead by Example: Build strong relationships with HCD team members, acting as a point of contact for subject matter expertise on HCD topics including User Experience best practices, user researching principles, and design efforts on a variety of projects.
  • Conduct User Research: Design, plan, and conduct face-to-face qualitative and quantitative user research engagements such as interviews, surveys, usability testing, and heuristic audits to uncover specific actionable insights to inform product strategy and roadmaps.
  • Prototype and Validate Designs: Develop prototypes and conduct user testing and usability testing to validate and iterate on design concepts, ensuring solutions meet/exceed user needs and expectations.
  • Analyze and Synthesize Findings: Lead the analysis of research findings, synthesize insights, and present research reports to both internal and client leadership. Track and synthesize feedback from a variety of stakeholders to create holistic informative user personas, user journeys, content inventories, and wireframes to communicate design decisions effectively.
  • Craft Narratives: Create compelling stories that translate insights into provocative strategies for innovative healthcare software products and services. Communicate findings and insights to a variety of cross-functional stakeholders in a compelling and actionable manner.
  • Flexible Agile and Growth Mindset: Independently and pro-actively operate in a fast-paced, non-hierarchical environment, managing multiple projects simultaneously. Embrace a flexible mindset, willing to try, fail, and adapt within agile cycles. Bring an alacrity to promote ongoing education and obtain certifications to infuse current best practices in all HCD efforts.

REQUIRED EXPERIENCE: 

  • Experience: Minimum of 7 years of client-facing professional senior-level experience in design research or human-centered research with a proven track record of uncovering user insights and translating them into impactful, elegant design solutions.
  • Agile Experience: Hands-on experience creating and prioritizing stories within an Agile software development environment.
  • Leadership and Collaboration: Experience in servant leadership roles utilizing methodologies such as Scrum, Kanban, SAFe, and familiarity with tools like JIRA and DSDM. Ability to lead cross-functional teams and collaborate effectively with diverse stakeholders.
  • Technical Knowledge: Deep understanding of web technologies and Lean User Experience Design within the Systems Development Lifecycle (SDLC) and Project Management Lifecycle.
  • Communication Skills: Superior communication skills to extract unexpected insights, but also to convey complex design concepts and research findings clearly and persuasively to various audiences.
  • Inquisitive Nature: An inquisitive nature and self-confidence to experiment with new approaches and methods to uncover latent needs related to website user interfaces and user experience.
  • Candidates must be able to obtain and maintain a Public Trust clearance
  • Candidates must have lived in the United States 3 out of the past 5 years

PREFERRED EXPERIENCE: 

  • UXD or HCD Certification desired
  • CMS / Federal Government Program experience.
  • Experience in SAFe 6.0 (Scaled Agile Framework) preferred.

EDUCATION & CERTIFICATIONS:

  • 7+ years of experience in a Human-Centered UI/UX Design with User Researcher role.
  • Bachelor’s Degree in any IT related field, such as User Interface Design, User Experience Design, Interaction Design, or Industrial Design

 

If you need accommodation seeking employment with Sparksoft Corporation, please email Sparksoft.Accommodations@sparksoftcorp.com or call 410-424-7700. Accommodations are made on a case-by-case basis.

At Sparksoft Corporation, we take security and protection of personal information very seriously. We will never ask you to send private personal information over email. Accordingly, we ask you to immediately contact our security team via email at abuse@sparksoftcorp.com upon receiving a suspicious request.

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