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Head of User Experience Design

The Office of Data and Innovation (ODI) is looking for a Head of User Experience Design who is passionate about making government work better for residents and who is curious, creative and excited about creating the best possible user experience for Californians.

You will lead ODI’s User Experience Design Team, including visual design, service design, UX design, and Content Design. Our team is curious, creative, and excited to help make the California state government work better. You’ll bring intention to our work, you’ll help inform our focus on people and the end user, be they state staff or residents. You’re a leader who will create a collaborative, supportive, and encouraging work environment. You value empathy towards everyone, including the public, co-workers, and partners across government.

You’ll establish team norms and rituals, like design critiques and retros. You’ll lead the development of templates, standards, and guidelines. You’ll contribute to the California Design System and to CalAcademy training programs.

You’re an expert practitioner of human-centered design. You’ll look at people, policy, and product with a goal to uncover the “why” behind the “what.” You’ll commit to making what ODI designs and builds fully accessible to the people we serve, using plain language and other tools. You’ll show state partners how human-centered design is essential, effective, and doable.

Location: ODI staff reside throughout California. This position provides telework opportunities in accordance with agency telework policies. ODI is currently operating in a hybrid work environment with staff reporting to the office 2 days a week to either Sacramento HQ or our Oakland Hub.

Annual salary: $141,336 – $168,384 based on experience and qualifications

Benefits: The state offers many benefits, including pension, health benefits (including after retirement), life insurance, employee assistance program, and much more.

Last day to apply: November 6, 2024

What you’ll do

You will find additional information about the job in the Duty Statement.

We have a guide to the career executive assignment application process. It covers

  • How to apply
  • Interviews

Desirable qualifications

In addition to evaluating each candidate’s relative ability, as demonstrated by quality and breadth of experience, the following factors will provide the basis for competitively evaluating each candidate:

  • Experience leading coordinated efforts across multiple program areas in an organization
  • Ability to foster a big picture perspective at both the staff and executive levels
  • Ability to independently identify, manage, and make sound decisions on complex and sensitive UX design issues
  • Ability to recognize and value the importance of a human-centered organization that values the role of all internal and external customers
  • Ability to apply innovative problem solving to create new ideas and develop new approaches to achieve an organization’s mission and goals
  • Ability to foster and maintain collaborative working relationships with internal and external partners by applying leadership practices
  • Experience planning, developing, and implementing policies for digital services and products
  • Experience establishing UX design standards with a focus on human-centered design
  • Experience with strategic planning, resource management, and program delivery
  • Ability to consult directly with clients as a principal UX designer to influence project planning, research, service delivery, and interaction architecture

About ODI

We deliver better services to Californians through technology and design. We do so through close partnership with other state departments. Our goal is to create programs and products that are more equitable and effective. We listen to Californians who use a program now or may do so tomorrow and learn about what they need.

We:

  • Build tools and products
  • Create and enhance digital services
  • Conduct research
  • Identify data solutions
  • Offer training

We are a cross-discipline staff with blended backgrounds in:

  • Design
  • Engineering
  • Product
  • Operations
  • Data
  • Research
  • Policy
  • Strategy

Learn more about ODI’s vision and mission.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion at ODI

Diversity, equity, and inclusion help us deliver better government services to Californians.

  • Fostering diversity inspires better ideas and more innovative thinking.
  • Feeling included nurtures a shared sense of community. This drives us to take collective action on challenging problems.
  • Prioritizing equity ensures we build solutions for people whose needs are often overlooked.

We acknowledge our history and present of implicit and structural injustice, bias, and discrimination. We see, hear, and accept each other and the lived experiences we bring to our work. We support each other in learning and developing so we can help all Californians thrive.

We understand this work is never done. That’s why we commit to constant improvement.