--- title: 'Senior/Staff Service Designer (U.S. Air Force) at Skylight' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/senior-staff-service-designer-u-s-air-force-skylight-united-states-byh49jr8atyy' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-10-15' --- # Senior/Staff Service Designer (U.S. Air Force) at Skylight - **Company:** Skylight - **Location:** United States - **Work type:** remote - **Posted:** 2026-10-13 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-10-15 - **Apply:** https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/skylighthq/jobs/4743471005 ## Job description ## About Skylight Skylight is a digital consultancy using design and technology to help government agencies deliver better public services. We’re at the forefront of a civic movement to reinvent how all levels of government serve families, patients, and many others in today’s digital world. If you want to play a part in driving this critical movement forward, we’d love for you to join our growing team of public interest technologists. The work we do matters. ## About the job At Skylight, service designers tie together human, digital, and physical interactions to create or change how government organizations operate in order to create or improve a service. Service designers are expected to understand the problem and organizational landscape, identify opportunities, and iteratively develop services and solutions. In this role, you’ll work with a U.S. Air Force enterprise DevSecOps provider that delivers platforms and services to software teams across multiple value streams. Our team provides strategic product, design, engineering, and customer experience support to the program. You’ll help create one unified customer journey across those value streams. That means analyzing end users, the operational workflows they depend on, and how customers fit into those workflows, then using that understanding to shape how the user portal evolves. What to know going in This is a systems and analysis role, closer to business analysis than interface design. Front-end design, rapid prototyping, and design feedback loops aren’t part of the work. If your portfolio is mostly screens, this probably isn’t the right fit. We’re looking for work that shows journey mapping, workflow analysis, and decisions you helped stakeholders reach. ## What you’ll do - Map a unified customer journey across multiple value streams, connecting end users, operational workflows, and the teams that support them - Represent customer needs and requirements for each value stream, and help multiple engineering teams agree on how to sequence the user portal - Plan, conduct, and synthesize research into service blueprints, journey maps, and system maps that the whole program can act on - Identify and prioritize service improvements without sacrificing the capabilities users rely on today - Facilitate program increment (PI) planning events and working sessions that turn stakeholder input into clear decisions - Maintain organized, well-written documentation throughout the process ## What we’re looking for ## Basic qualifications - Can take a systems thinking approach to changing how elements of an organization interact and influence one another - Ability to plan, synthesize, and present research - Ability to identify the best opportunities for service improvement through ideation and experimentation activities - Know how to align policies, technology, infrastructures, and systems to drive meaningful outcomes for the business and users - Ability to lead collaborative research and design activities, influence others, and build consensus - Experience in service design or business analysis, including analyzing end users and operational workflows - Strong stakeholder management or consulting experience, including representing user needs to multiple teams with competing priorities - Experience working on cross-functional teams (product, design, engineering, ops) in iterative delivery - A mindset and work approach that aligns with our [core values](https://skylight.digital/company/values/) Nice-to-haves - Customer success experience - User research experience - Military or defense experience - Experience delivering technology in government, regulated industries, or other public-benefit settings - A track record of staying aligned and accountable on remote teams Don’t meet every qualification but think you can do the job? We’d still love to hear from you. If you’re excited about the role, apply. We consider candidates with a range of backgrounds and experiences. Other requirements - Some of our available roles are on federal contracts that require a degree or additional years of experience as a substitute. - All work must be conducted within the U.S., excluding U.S. territories. - This contract requires U.S. citizenship to be eligible for employment. - This contract requires you to obtain a Common Access Card (CAC) and special access. - You must complete a company background check successfully. Logistics Position type This is a full-time, exempt position. Location This is a fully remote position. Travel This role requires quarterly travel to San Antonio, Texas. Expected start date October 19, 2026 Care package Salary We want to give you the most competitive salary possible. After all, you deserve it! To that end, we use the results of our interview process to determine what salary is most appropriate given your current level of seniority. For a Service Designer at Skylight, the current salary ranges are as follows: - Associate Service Designer: $90,000–$125,000 - Service Designer I: $120,000–$140,000 - Service Designer II: $135,000–$160,000 - Senior Service Designer: $150,000–$185,000 - Staff Service Designer: $170,000–$203,000 - Principal Service Designer: $180,000–$230,000 ## Benefits Your well-being is important to us, so we focus on supporting you in a variety of ways: - Medical insurance, dental insurance, vision insurance - Short-term and long-term disability insurance - Life and AD&D insurance - Dependent care FSA, healthcare FSA, health savings account - Dollar-for-dollar 401(k) match up to 10% of your salary with no vesting period - Flexible paid-time-off policy (generally around 25 days per year), plus 11 paid federal holidays - Up to 12 weeks paid-time-off for all eligible new birth, adoption, or foster parents - Performance rewards, including annual salary increase, annual performance bonus, spot bonuses, and stock options - Business development / sales bonuses - Referral bonuses - Annual $2,000 allowance for professional development - Annual $750 allowance for tech-related purchases - Annual swag budget of $100 to display your Skylight pride with some merchandise (hoodies, hats, and more) - Flexible, remote-friendly work environment - An environment that empowers you to unleash your superpowers for public good Interview tips Our process includes a preliminary screen, a skills interview, a behavioral interview, and a reverse interview where you meet your potential team — usually four conversations across two to three weeks. Here are some tips to help you prepare for a successful interview: - Visit our [join page](https://skylight.digital/careers/join/#interview-process) to learn more about how our interview process works. - Check out our [Career Pathways framework](https://skylight.digital/careers/career-pathways/) to learn more about the different roles within Skylight and the skills needed to do them. - Browse our [case studies](https://skylight.digital/work/experience/) to learn more about our work. - Please include a portfolio of 1–2 work samples with your application. Your portfolio can be anything from a website to a slide deck — whatever best showcases your work. We suggest choosing work samples that highlight your skills and experience in relation to the qualifications outlined in the job posting. Unless specified in the job requirements, your portfolio doesn’t need to be tied to any particular industry or field — just select samples that best represent your expertise. To ensure we can review your application promptly, please remove any access passwords on your portfolio or provide access details. If you’d like to request reasonable accommodations during the application or interviewing process, please contact our recruiting team at recruiting@skylight.digital. We participate in E-Verify and upon hire, will provide the federal government with your Form I-9 information to confirm that you’re authorized to work in the U.S. We are an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, national origin, sex, religion, age, disability, veteran status, or any other category protected by applicable law. ## About Skylight ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: Skylight is a digital consultancy that helps government agencies deliver better public services through human-centered design, lean-agile engineering, and digital transformation. - **Entity Type**: Private (startup stage; offers stock options) - **Headquarters**: Sarasota, Florida, USA (distributed/remote team across 34 states) - **Founded**: June 2017 - **Founders**: Chris Cairns (President, co-founder of 18F and Technology Transformation Services) ## Core Business - **Primary industry/industries**: Digital government consulting; public sector digital transformation - **Target customers**: U.S. federal, state, and local government agencies (e.g., Veterans Affairs, immigration services) - **Mission or purpose statement**: “Make government work in a digital world” – helping agencies become digital-first through culture change, modern practices, and empowered talent. ## Products & Services Skylight offers professional services, not packaged products. Key service areas: - **Digital Strategy & Transformation**: Roadmaps, operating model design, and organizational change management. - **Human-Centered Design & Research**: User research, service design, and accessible interface design. - **Lean-Agile Engineering**: Custom software development, DevOps, cloud migration, and modern infrastructure. - **Data Science & Engineering**: Data pipelines, analytics, and machine learning for public-sector use cases. - **Security & Compliance**: Security engineering, FedRAMP readiness, and zero-trust architecture. - **Procurement & Acquisition**: Helping agencies buy digital services effectively using modern contracting methods. ## Market Standing - **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly available - **Key Metric**: Team size of 164 people (as of latest update); no public revenue or funding data - **Notable Investors/Partners**: Co-founded the **Digital Services Coalition**; no external investors disclosed (appears bootstrapped) - **Growth Signals**: Growing headcount (164 people across 34 states), expanding client base to include Canadian government (Ottawa), active hiring for multiple senior/staff roles ## Competitive Advantages - **Deep government DNA**: Leadership and many team members came from 18F, U.S. Digital Service, and Presidential Innovation Fellows – giving them insider knowledge of how government works. - **Culture-first approach**: Openly shares knowledge, treats every interaction as a teaching opportunity, and prioritizes culture change as a core part of transformation. - **Distributed & remote-native**: Built as a remote-first company from the start, allowing them to attract top talent nationwide. - **Public-service mission**: Employees are driven by impact, not profit – creating strong alignment with government clients. ## Strategic Focus - **Scaling digital mastery**: Helping agencies institutionalize modern practices (human-centered design, lean-agile) rather than just delivering projects. - **Expanding into defense & security**: Actively hiring a Vice President of Defense & Security, indicating a push into national security clients. - **Building the talent pipeline**: Offering paid internships and apprenticeships to grow the next generation of civic tech practitioners. ## Why Work Here - **Mission-driven work**: Directly improve public services for veterans, immigrants, and millions of other citizens. - **Remote-friendly & flexible**: Distributed team across 34 states; decide when, where, and how to work. - **Competitive compensation**: Salary, stock options (stake in company), performance rewards, referral bonuses. - **Benefits**: 401(k) match up to 10% of salary; up to $2,000/year professional development budget; up to 12 weeks paid parental leave; medical/dental/vision with significant premium coverage; life insurance; HSA/FSA. - **Time off**: Flexible PTO (≈25 days/year) plus 11 paid federal holidays. - **Tech & swag**: Annual tech budget up to $750; $100 swag budget. - **Culture**: Strong emphasis on growth mindset, inclusivity, and continuous improvement; code of conduct; community involvement (charitable donation match up to $500/year). - **Hiring process**: All interviews via video; focuses on getting to know you, not trick questions; accommodations available. ## Sources 1. [skylight.digital - Home](https://skylight.digital/) 2. [skylight.digital - Join Us](https://skylight.digital/careers/join/) 3. [skylight.digital - Team](https://skylight.digital/company/about/) 4. 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