Principal Designer (Remote)

This is a remote position with heavy travel for the first 3-6 months

Ad Hoc is a technology company that empowers organizations to deliver scalable, impactful digital services. Using modern, agile methods, our team creates products that meet people's needs and transform their experience of government.

Work on things that matter

Our collaborations have shaped some of the defining moments in public-sector service delivery. We've helped build products that connect Veterans to tailored services, help millions access affordable health care, and support important programs like Head Start. As we work with agencies to deliver critical services, we're also changing how the government approaches technology.

Built for a remote life

Our culture, communications, and tools are built for remote work, enabling us to bring together top talent nationwide. At Ad Hoc, remote life empowers our teams to design work environments that fit their lives and that foster flexibility and collaboration to achieve positive outcomes for our customers.

Committed to high expectations and a welcoming culture

Ad Hoc values acceptance, accountability, and humility. We aren't heroes. We learn from our mistakes and improve the process for the next time. We build small, inclusive teams to collaborate closely with our partners to solve the right problems and deliver software that works.

The Federal Civilian business unit supports many customers spanning the federal, commercial, and nonprofit space. Our customers include NASA, the General Services Administration, Office of Personnel Management, the Library of Congress, Health & Human Services, and the FDIC. We partner with these agencies to build new capabilities, deliver products, establish data as a strategic asset for informed decision-making, modernize legacy systems, and build the digital service infrastructure necessary to scale their mission impact.

Primary Responsibilities:

Principal Designer serves as a subject matter expert, while serving as an individual contributor that provides mentorship associated with design competencies. A Principal Designer exhibits influential skills to shape future work streams within the current HHS customer base, while maintaining a strategic vision to successfully pursue new business opportunities. With limited oversight from leadership, you will be responsible for cohesively integrating industry design trends and devising a plan for adoption within programs, as well as the business unit. A Principal Designer serves as a representative of the business unit, effectively communicating design strategies to a diverse audience. Primary expectations of a Principal Designer include:

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  Provides organizational oversight of best practices associated with design

  
  
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  Exhibits a in-depth understanding of the design discipline and utilizes their expertise to support the business unit via new business or organic growth opportunities

  
  
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  Advocates for innovation among the business unit, and collaborates with leadership throughout the organization

  
  
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  Demonstrates significant design competence and ownership to broad audiences while driving progress on company strategic objectives within the business unit

  
  
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  Mentors, guides, and coaches other designers at the company, with a focus on design excellence and leadership

  
  
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  Effectively communicates on past performance and design strategies to support bid-writing, tech demos, and other potentially client-facing communications

  
  
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  May support hiring, onboarding and career development activities

  
  
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  May represent the company publicly inclusive of writing blog posts, generating marketing materials, presenting at conferences, and taking part in panel discussions

  
  
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  May work cross-functionally to support design activities within other business units

  
  
• Experienced with human centered design processes and deliverables in compliance with standards and regulations
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  Knowledgeable of accessibility tasks inclusive of 508 compliance and have knowledge or experience with other emerging accessibility standards

  
  
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  Understanding of the business unit's current labor mix, with the ability to identify primary skills and experiences; supports the key personnel identification process

  
  
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  Extensive understanding of government and practice market conditions in order to drive organizational improvements and innovation

  
  
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  Champions collaboration with teams across the business unit to identify design needs and deliver solutions to advance medium and long-term technology goals

  
  
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  In-depth knowledge of the business unit's customer portfolio, understanding customer operations, work and approval processes, and objectives

  
  

Basic Qualifications:

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  Bachelor's degree and 10 years of UIX/UI and service design experience creating user-centered digital products for large-scale, public-facing platforms

  
  
  
  
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    Relevant years of experience may be substituted for education

    
    
  
  
  
  
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  Expert-level proficiency in modern design systems including component architectures, design tokens, responsive frameworks, and cross-channel design patterns

  
  
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  Hands-on experience shaping enterprise-wide design systems for complex organizations, ideally within government, public health, or regulated environments

  
  
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  Strong proficiency in Figma (libraries, prototyping, auto-layout, variants) and complementary tools for research synthesis and interaction design

  
  
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  Deep understanding of accessibility compliance (Section 508, WCAG 2.2 AA), including conducting accessibility audits and influencing engineering teams to implement remediations

  
  
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  Ability to translate ambiguous, high-level policy requirements into clear user journeys, workflows and, and content structures

  
  
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  Comfort operating in ambiguous, politically charged contexts where priority shifts, stakeholder alignment, and public perception can evolve daily.

  
  
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  Demonstrated success influencing decision-makers through data-driven storytelling, user research insights, and clear articulation of tradeoffs.

  
  
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  Experience in health-related or scientific-related deign and communication

  
  

Preferred Qualifications:

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  Federal government experience

  
  
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  Health policy and data analytics experience

  
  

To learn more about working at Ad Hoc, please visit:https://adhocteam.us/join

Benefits:

• Company-subsidized health, dental, and vision insurance
• Flexible PTO
• 401K with employer match
• Paid parental leave after one year of service
• Employee Assistance Program

Ad Hoc LLC is 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.

In support of various state and city equal pay transparency laws, Ad Hoc job descriptions feature the starting range we reasonably expect to pay to candidates who would join our team with little to no need for training on the responsibilities we've outlined above. Actual compensation is influenced by a wide range of factors including but not limited to skill set, level of experience, and responsibility. The range of starting pay for this role is $135,000 - $150,000. Our recruiters will be happy to answer any questions you may have, and we look forward to learning more about your salary requirements.