UI/UX Designer Principal

Req ID: RQ227095 Type of Requisition: Regular Clearance Level Must Be Able to Obtain: None Public Trust/Other Required: Other Job Family: Software Engineering Skills: Usability Evaluation,Usability Testing Tools,User Experience (UX) Strategies Experience: 10 + years of related experience Job Description: We are seeking a highly skilled and experienced senior-level Human-Centered Design (HCD) and user interface expert to join our dynamic team. The ideal candidate will also possess strong expertise in Information Architecture (IA), including the organization, structure, labeling, navigation, and discoverability of complex information and application functionality. This role requires a candidate who can provide detailed and useful interface design specifications to development teams, ensuring the creation of intuitive, user-friendly applications. Key Responsibilities: Provide subject matter expertise in UX design, offering strategic guidance grounded in Human-Centered Design and design thinking methodologies, including user research, personas, journey mapping, prototyping, mockups, and usability evaluation. Provide subject matter expertise in Information Architecture, defining scalable structures, navigation models, taxonomies, labeling systems, content hierarchies, and information relationships that enable users to efficiently find, understand, and complete tasks. Create and deliver a User Experience (UX) Research Plan and Outcomes for each use case, which shall include a research write-up documenting goals, anticipated outcomes, research questions, hypotheses, methodology, recruiting needs, synthesis, and next steps. Facilitate discovery activities, to include generative research with users and business stakeholders, an assessment of current related features, a content review, an information architecture review, an accessibility review, a business process review; and collection of any available data and analytics and provide in a User Experience Research Checklist. Partner with other Product Teams to ensure that the new tool or service fits into the existing structure. Collaborate across Product Teams to establish consistent navigation, terminology, categorization, and information structures across features, applications, and services. Lead the design and development of user interfaces for various applications, ensuring they are visually appealing, user-friendly, and efficient. Provide clear and actionable interface design specifications to development teams. Design dynamic forms and other complex UI components, including rich cards and drag & drop features. Define and maintain UX frameworks and templates for developers to use during the coding process. Define and maintain Information Architecture standards, patterns, and documentation to promote consistency, scalability, and usability across the product ecosystem. Apply insights from user experience research studies to describe product functionality, including epics and user stories, as well as operational, business, functional, technical, data, and integration requirements. Support design synthesis activities and generate insights and opportunities for improvement. Communicate research findings through a variety of formats (such as insight reports, stories, videos, storyboards, etc.) to maximize relevance and impact. Perform requirements analysis based on User Experience Research, obtaining stakeholder input from internal users and external users. Develop User Personas to represent user types that have wants and needs of our applications and products, and who might use our applications and products in a similar way. Create Customer and User Journey Maps and capture related data. Map user journeys, workflows, content, and system functionality to an overall Information Architecture to ensure individual features support a coherent end-to-end user experience. Collaborate with cross-functional teams, including product owners, developers, and other designers. Conduct usability testing sessions to gather feedback on designs and apply results to refine designs. Write and edit plain language content for Development Teams. Establish clear, consistent, and user-centered terminology and labeling conventions in collaboration with UX, content, business, and technical stakeholders. Design, test, and deliver low- and high-fidelity wireframes, prototypes, and interactive web forms, updating them as needed to support stakeholder collaboration, usability testing, facilitated demos, and iterative design improvements. Lead user testing sessions and conduct thorough analysis to inform design improvements. Establish and uphold design standards across project components. Establish and uphold Information Architecture standards across project components, ensuring consistency in navigation, hierarchy, terminology, categorization, and content organization. Collaborate with cross-functional teams to ensure seamless integration of UI/UX designs. Work with ReactJS, JavaScript, CSS, HTML and Tailwind to develop and refine user interfaces. Design within a micro-service architecture to create scalable and maintainable solutions. Qualifications: MA/MS plus 10+ years of general experience in information systems with 8+ years of specialized experience. HS (16+ years), AA/AS (14+ years), BA/BS (12+ years), Doctorate Degree/Ph.D. (9+ years) Familiarity with front-end development and specifically in ReactJS and JavaScript development. Familiarity with UX, information architecture, content strategy, and best practices in user centered design. Extensive experience developing Information Architecture for complex enterprise applications, including navigation structures, taxonomies, hierarchies, labeling systems, and information models. Experience conducting IA research and validation methods such as card sorting, tree testing, content inventories, taxonomy evaluation, and navigation testing. Experience creating and maintaining IA deliverables such as site maps, application maps, navigation models, taxonomy documentation, content hierarchies, and information architecture diagrams. Experience with designing software to align to strategic business needs and goals. Experience in conducting research for advanced technologies to determining how IT can support business needs leveraging software, hardware, or infrastructure. Experience in Figma or other related design tool. Experience in usability testing tools. Excellent problem-solving skills and the ability to think critically. Strong communication skills, with the ability to articulate design concepts and decisions to stakeholders. Ability to work effectively in a fast-paced environment. Proven track record of delivering scalable and reliable software solutions. A portfolio demonstrating expertise in UI/UX design and relevant projects, including experience with Information Architecture deliverables and the organization of complex enterprise applications or digital products. Proven experience in designing dynamic forms with a strong emphasis on intuitive user experience and efficient design. Extensive experience in creating CSS cards and drag & drop functionality. Experience on UX strategy, user researcher, user interviews, surveys, and usability study. Builds personas, user journey map, empathy maps. Experience on UX analysis to conduct competitive analysis, market assessments and heuristic evaluations. Experienced in using user feedback to inform UX improvements and guide design decisions. Extensive hands-on experience in developing and testing wireframes and prototypes. Detailed knowledge of Section 508 requirements, and experience designing interfaces to be 508 compliant. Understanding of accessibility considerations related to Information Architecture, including accessible navigation, heading hierarchy, meaningful labels, consistent terminology, and predictable information structures. Demonstrated ability to generate innovative solutions to complex design problems. Solid background in defining and maintaining design standards. Solid background in defining and maintaining Information Architecture standards and governance across large or complex applications. Experience working with tools like Jira, Confluence extensively for work item tracking and documentation. Experience working in an agile environment with a knowledge of SAFe. Understanding of Agile methodologies. Communication and Organizational Excellent presentation and communication (oral and written) skills. Consultant mindset with the ability to work with high level customer stakeholders and build excellent customer relationship. Experience identifying and applying industry tools, solutions, methods best practices, and emerging technologies. Strong analytical skills and problem-solving skills with the ability to formulate and communicate recommendations for improvement. Experienced with process design and documentation methodologies, and design and production of quality deliverables, process and use case modeling, business case development. Ability to facilitate Information Architecture workshops and alignment sessions with users, stakeholders, product teams, and technical teams to establish shared understanding of terminology, navigation, hierarchy, and application structure. Ability to clearly communicate and document Information Architecture decisions, rationale, dependencies, and recommendations for both technical and non-technical audiences. Demonstrated ability to work effectively, independently, and as part of a team. Strong project management, leadership & meeting facilitation skill with knowledge of Project Life Cycle The likely salary range for this position is $129,813 - $172,500. This is not, however, a guarantee of compensation or salary. Rather, salary will be set based on experience, geographic location and possibly contractual requirements and could fall outside of this range. Total Rewards at GDIT: Our benefits package for all US-based employees includes a variety of medical plan options, some with Health Savings Accounts, dental plan options, a vision plan, and a 401(k) plan offering the ability to contribute both pre and post-tax dollars up to the IRS annual limits and receive a company match. To encourage work/life balance, GDIT offers employees full flex work weeks where possible and a variety of paid time off plans, including vacation, sick and personal time, holidays, paid parental, military, bereavement and jury duty leave. GDIT typically provides new employees with 15 days of paid leave per calendar year to be used for vacations, personal business, and illness and an additional 10 paid holidays per year. Paid leave and paid holidays are prorated based on the employee’s date of hire. The GDIT Paid Family Leave program provides a total of up to 160 hours of paid leave in a rolling 12 month period for eligible employees. To ensure our employees are able to protect their income, other offerings such as short and long-term disability benefits, life, accidental death and dismemberment, personal accident, critical illness and business travel and accident insurance are provided or available. We regularly review our Total Rewards package to ensure our offerings are competitive and reflect what our employees have told us they value most. Our Identity Verification Process: As part of the hiring process, we will ask you to complete an identity verification process that leverages advanced biometrics and artificial intelligence to ensure authenticity and protect against identity fraud. You are expected to be on camera during virtual interviews. We reserve the right to take your picture to verify your identity and prevent fraud. By proceeding, you authorize the collection, processing, and use of your biometric data for identity verification and security purposes. About Our Work: We are GDIT. A global technology and professional services company that delivers technology solutions and mission services to every major agency across the U.S. government, defense and intelligence community. Our 26,000 experts extract the power of technology to create immediate value and deliver solutions at the edge of innovation. We operate across 50+ countries worldwide, offering leading mission-ready capabilities in AI, cloud, cyber and software development. Join our Talent Community to stay up to date on our career opportunities and events at Equal Opportunity Employer / Individuals with Disabilities / Protected Veterans #J-18808-Ljbffr General Dynamics Information Technology