The position is located in the Department of Education, Federal Student Aid. As a Service Designer, you will assist in transforming how millions of students and families access financial aid and play a vital role in implementing the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA).
Basic Experience Requirements: You must possess IT related experience (paid or unpaid experience and/or completion of specific, intensive training (e.g., IT certification), as appropriate) demonstrating each of the four competencies listed below. 1. Attention to Detail - Is thorough when performing work and conscientious about attending to detail. 2. Customer Service - Works with clients and customers (i.e., any individuals who use or receive the services or products that your work unit produces, including the general public, individuals who work in the agency, other agencies, or organizations outside the Government) to assess their needs, provide information or assistance, resolve their problems, or satisfy their expectations; knows about available products and services; is committed to providing quality products and services. 3. Oral Communication - Expresses information (e.g., ideas or facts) to individuals or groups effectively, taking into account the audience and nature of the information (e.g., technical, sensitive, controversial); makes clear and convincing oral presentations; listens to others, attends to nonverbal cues, and responds appropriately. 4. Problem Solving - Identifies problems; determines accuracy and relevance of information; uses sound judgment to generate and evaluate alternatives, and to make recommendations. Minimum Qualification Requirements You may meet the minimum qualifications for the GS-15, if you possess the specialize experience, education, or a combination of the two. Specialized Experience for the GS-15 One year of experience in either federal or non-federal service that is equivalent to at least a GS-14 performing two (2) out of three (3) of the following duties or work assignments: 1. Experience leading or serving in a senior role of a multi-disciplinary project involving the design, development, and implementation of a new system or a major enhancement to an existing IT system. 2. Experience serving as a design lead, overseeing adoption of new functionalities or technologies for users. 3. Experience communicating technical concepts to non-technical audiences and translating business requirements into technical user stories. Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities (KSAs) 1. Skill in applying product design practices such as user-centered design, user research, interaction design, information architecture, visual design, and accessibility to deliver high-quality software products. 2. Knowledge of agile software development methodologies that ensure iterative and value-driven delivery of software products. 3. Ability to clearly articulate where new design activities should be injected into existing product development. 4. Knowledge of leading, organizing and facilitating user research initiatives that create understanding and empathy around user needs, stated and unstated. 5. Ability to utilize strong analytical and design capabilities in synthesizing user research to share findings and address user needs.
APPLICATION LIMIT: This vacancy announcement is limited to the first 200 applications received and will close at 11:59PM Eastern Time on the day that we receive the 200th application, or at 11:59PM Eastern Time on the listed closing date, whichever occurs first. We encourage you to read this entire vacancy announcement prior to submitting your application. As an IT Program Manager, GS-2210-15, you will be responsible for: • Working with cross-functional agile development teams and directly with users to transform the way FSA uses technology to improve service delivery including Artificial Intelligent (AI) and AI-enabling technologies. They will solve challenging design problems that will impact the lives of students, their families, and the people who serve them. The position requires bringing leadership skills and experience in user-centered design, information architecture, visual design, and user research to bear within a collaborative, mission-focused environment. The position will also provide agility to the whole product organization through centralized design tools, design systems, and design services that enhance speed and quality of design execution. • Identifying, prioritizing and implementating customer experience strategies and processes with a focus on continuous improvement to maximize entire end-to-end experiences. Leading processes to develop a unified, multi-year strategic experience roadmap to align business goals and user needs across all channels (e.g. web, mobile, phone, chat, data interfaces) to create a consistent IT customer experience. Leading the process to identify, create, track, and improve key customer experience metrics to improve user experiences with systems and processes. Guiding the identification of what customer insights are required to improve our customer’s experience including key and prospective customer segments. Collaborating with FSA leadership and program leads to develop cohesive user experience and design goals. • Leading the user experience design and research discipline and serves as the voice for users by advocating for and teaching about best practices for user-centered design and user research across FSA. Helps build, mentor and inspire design teams across the agency while effectively navigating complex enterprise organizations and processes. Enforces a user-centered process and ensures that UX design (research, information architecture, visual design) is a key component of development, iteration, and delivery of products and that proper UX and design methods are used. Understands the opportunities and limitations of modern web and mobile technologies such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and LLM-based chatbots such as ChatGPT, as well as how the technologies of each can be used to further enhance a users’ overall experience. • Working with communications and engagement offices across FSA and Ed to support and coordinate field research and usability testing by facilitating access to users. Working closely with business stakeholders, product managers, product designers, web analytics, and marketing to identify gaps in the overall UX research strategy and collaboratively implement enhancements. Educating business owners, product managers, technology leads, and others about research principles, best practices, and how to integrate UX research data and processes into everyday activities. • Establishing, guiding and prioritizing an agency-wide research program to make data-driven recommendations for design change based on research findings and to ensure that resources are being directed towards solutions that maximize impact for FSA. Identifiing and mitigating safety and security considerations for the use of AI and machine learning (bias, dual use, data privacy, civil rights, civil liberties, etc.) to ensure responsible use at FSA.