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, service designers tie together human, digital, and physical interactions to create or change how government organizations operate in order to create or improve a service. Service designers are expected to understand the problem and organizational landscape, identify opportunities, and iteratively develop services and solutions.
In this role, you'll work with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Children and Families (ACF) to enhance the grant recipient experience through service design. You'll be part of a team that shapes impactful solutions to improve how grant recipients access support, helping them deliver critical services to communities more efficiently and effectively. This is an opportunity to contribute to innovative projects that maximize the impact of government funding and improve the well-being of children, youth, families, and communities across the nation.
What you’ll do
- Lead strategy and planning to define service design engagements
- Iteratively conduct the core of activities of service design — research, ideation, prototyping, and implementation — as part of a multidisciplinary, lean-agile team
- Understand people and their behavior in relation to a service through research planning (e.g., what research methods to use), data collection (e.g., contextual inquiry), then synthesize research data through visualization and analysis (e.g., service blueprints)
- Generate ideas related to addressing the problem space through ideation planning, idea generation (e.g., brainwriting), and idea selection (e.g., decision matrix)
- Explore, evaluate, and communicate how people might experience or behave in future service situations through prototyping (commonly requires paper or clickable prototypes but may need other ways to validate user interactions and experiences)
- Implement changes to the components of a service — organizational, operational, human, technological, and physical — through activities such as process reengineering, software development, and change management
- Maintain organized, well-written documentation throughout the process
What we're looking for
Minimum qualifications
- Can take a systems thinking approach to changing how elements of an organization interact and influence one another
- Ability to plan, synthesize, and present research
- Ability to identify the best opportunities for service improvement through ideation and experimentation activities
- Know how to align policies, technology, infrastructures, and systems to drive meaningful outcomes for the business and users
- Ability to lead collaborative research and design activities, influence others, and build consensus
- Ability to work successfully within a professional services environment (e.g., can communicate effectively with clients)
- Passionate about creating better public outcomes through great government services
- A mindset and work approach that aligns with our core values
- Ability to travel for work from time to time
Nice-to-have qualifications
- Prior experience with grant programs for government or nonprofit organizations, particularly those related to health and human services
- Familiarity with federal grant regulations and the ability to navigate grant lifecycle processes from application through reporting
- A background in using data analytics to track the effectiveness and impact of grants, ensuring alignment with public service goals
- Prior experience working in the civic tech space
- Experience working in a remote-team environment
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 fully remote position.
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 Service Designer at Skylight, the current salary ranges are as follows:
- Associate Service Designer: $90,000–$125,000
- Service Designer I: $120,000–$140,000
- Service Designer II: $135,000–$160,000
- Senior Service Designer: $150,000–$185,000
- Staff Service Designer: $170,000–$203,000
- Principal Service 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
- Paid time off, including 20 vacation days, 11 federal holidays, and flexible sick leave
- 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
- Access up to $1,000 before payday to cover emergency expenses
- 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're an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, national origin, ancestry, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, religion, age, pregnancy, disability, work-related injury, covered veteran status, political ideology, marital status, or any other factor that the law protects from employment discrimination.
