Service Designer

Job Description

Code for America uses the principles and practices of the digital age to improve how government serves the American public, and how the public improves government. We use a data-driven, user-centered, and iterative approach to building technology to help government services work, starting with the people who need them most.

We are looking for a Service Designer to join our GetCalFresh team. The vision for GetCalFresh is to close the CalFresh (food stamps) participation gap by making CalFresh accessible to all eligible Californians, with ease and dignity. The GetCalFresh team operates a CalFresh application service that has assisted over 1.2 million people to apply for CalFresh. We seek to address gaps that exist between people, groups, and places so that anyone can access CalFresh with dignity. We operate GetCalFresh in all 58 California counties, and we work with county agencies and the California Department of Social Services to improve how CalFresh is delivered.

GetCalFresh is an initiative of Code for America’s Safety Net portfolio. The Safety Net portfolio works to establish a human-centered safety net in every state in the country by improving the delivery of safety net services to achieve better outcomes for clients and programs. Our goal is to define and implement improved safety benefit experiences for clients, caseworkers, and leaders in partnership with government agencies and a coalition of mission-aligned policy and delivery organizations.

As a Service Designer at Code for America, you will help the organization understand the people we serve and influence our product development. In this role, you will design systems at scale in the food stamps space. You’ll work with a multidisciplinary team of designers, researchers, engineers, and policy experts to analyze problems, and create solutions for public services that are simple enough for everyone to use. As the first Service Designer at Code for America, you’ll be taking design and process concepts forward and working hand-in-hand with partners to implement services in a variety of government settings. Understand the existing system of the CalFresh service and help to design targeted improvements to that system - both digital and process based. Identify failures within the CalFresh services and help the team understand root causes for those failures.

This role is based in San Francisco, and reports to the Design Manager.

Responsibilities

• Use common service design methods to document the GetCalFresh service and communicate your understanding to the team and government partners.
• Create journey maps, service blueprints, ecosystem maps, and other artifacts to communicate the current and ideal state of the service.
• Measure the impact of service interventions and how they ladder up to stakeholder goals and user needs
• Be able to communicate both the front-end and back-end service experience
• Participate in research planning activities
• Understand the policies, infrastructure, technology, and system constraints within the food stamps ecosystem.
• Facilitate co-design sessions with users and stakeholders
• Participate in strategy conversations and use insights to guide team's decision making
• Work with program and policy people to understand how food stamps policies contribute to service touch points or requirements

Requirements

• 4+ years of experience working as a service designer or design researcher
• We strongly encourage individuals who were on food stamps at any time during their lives to apply
• Ability to work collaboratively within a multidisciplinary team.
• Ability to work in a fast paced agile environment
• Ability to travel estimated at 25%
• Passion for our mission of making government services better for people who need them.

Benefits

Code for America offers full health and dental benefits, a 401k plan with matching funds and a culture that is collaborative, hardworking and fun.

About Code for America

Code for America is a startup non-profit with a great culture and a huge opportunity to make a difference. We work in cross-functional teams, collaboratively and agilely and value high-quality, user-friendly work product. We strive to learn from everything we do and regularly host talks from leaders in the civic technology movement. We respect each other, work hard, and have a great time together. We’re looking for people who share our vision, our values, and our willingness to do what it takes to achieve our mission over the next few years.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Code for America values a diverse workplace and strongly encourages women, people of color, LGBT folks, people with disabilities, members of ethnic minorities, foreign-born residents, and veterans to apply.

Code for America is an equal opportunity employer. Applicants will not be discriminated against because of race, color, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, religion, national origin, citizenship status, disability, ancestry, marital status, veteran status, medical condition or any protected category prohibited by local, state or federal laws.