Product Designer

Job description

**SteerBridge is a modern technology company delivering innovative, mission‑focused solutions to the U.S. Government and private sector.** Leveraging deep expertise in federal acquisition, digital transformation, and emerging technologies, we deliver agile, commercial‑grade capabilities that accelerate operational effectiveness and drive measurable mission success. At the core of SteerBridge is our people—especially the veterans whose leadership, problem‑solving mindset, and commitment to excellence elevate every project we support. We don’t simply hire exceptional talent; **we cultivate it**, creating meaningful career pathways for veterans, military spouses, and professionals who share our passion for advancing technology and strengthening the missions we serve. ### Position Overview SteerBridge seeks a Product Designer to join our Experience Design team supporting our Aviation Tech team and the continued development and expansion of AIRES, our aviation readiness capability. In this role, you will create high-fidelity UI prototypes in Figma, help maintain and extend our design system, and translate research findings, operational workflows, and technical requirements into clear, production-ready product experiences. You will work as part of a small product design team, collaborating closely with a senior product designer who will provide day-to-day direction, design critique, and mentorship. You will also work with UX researchers, engineers, data teams, product stakeholders, and aviation subject-matter experts. Ideal candidates are strong UI craftspeople who understand how design systems work in practice, are comfortable designing complex data-rich interfaces, are eager to learn, and thrive on clear direction and regular feedback. Over time, this role is expected to grow from executing defined design work to taking greater ownership of product workflows and features. **Design Patterns and Architectural Context** In data and software engineering, a design pattern is a battle-tested blueprint for solving a recurring problem. It is not a specific piece of code, but a standardized mental model that allows teams to skip the trial-and-error phase of architecture. SteerBridge applies proven patterns such as Medallion Architecture to structure, validate, and operationalize data within mission-critical aviation analytics platforms. Product designers work within this architectural context to translate complex data, workflows, and system behavior into clear, usable, and decision-ready experiences for operators working in high-consequence environments. **Primary Mission Area** The platform supports aviation readiness and sustainment operations including: - Fleet readiness monitoring - Maintenance planning - Supply chain coordination - Logistics forecasting - Operational planning support Primary users include aviation maintainers, logisticians, planners, and senior decision-makers operating under time pressure and incomplete information. The work involves complex, data-rich interfaces that help users understand aircraft status, maintenance requirements, supply constraints, readiness risk, and potential courses of action. **Core Responsibilities** - Design and build high-fidelity prototypes in Figma, translating wireframes, user flows, research findings, and requirements into polished, production-ready interfaces. - Design complex data-driven workflows and interfaces supporting aviation readiness, maintenance, logistics, and operational planning. - Turn UX research findings, subject-matter expert input, operational workflows, and technical requirements into product concepts and production-ready designs. - Support and help maintain the team’s design system, using existing components and tokens correctly and flagging or proposing new patterns as needs arise. - Receive design direction and assigned work from the senior product designer, execute against established priorities, and track progress through Jira. - Manage several concurrent design tasks and tickets in a fast-paced environment, prioritizing and estimating work across sprints. - Annotate and document handoff specifications, including states, edge cases, interaction details, and expected behaviors, so engineers can build without guesswork. - Perform design QA on shipped features, verifying that implementation matches Figma specifications, states, and interaction details. - Collaborate with product stakeholders, engineers, UX researchers, data teams, and aviation subject-matter experts to ensure designs are feasible, consistent, and aligned to operational requirements. - Participate actively in design reviews and critique sessions, incorporating feedback into iterations. - Apply consistent visual and interaction design standards across screens, workflows, and features. - Communicate design rationale clearly to designers, engineers, and stakeholders. - Incorporate feedback and direction between check-ins and proactively escalate blockers. **Research-Informed Product Design** - Partner with UX researchers to translate research findings and validated operational workflows into product designs. - Turn research findings, user flows, and operational requirements into wireframes, interaction models, and high-fidelity prototypes. - Work with aviation subject-matter experts to understand operational context and clarify design requirements. - Support interaction design and information architecture decisions for complex workflows. - Iterate on designs based on usability testing, stakeholder feedback, technical constraints, and changing operational requirements. - Help visualize concepts early so product and engineering teams can evaluate potential solutions before development. ### Required Skills and Qualifications - Must be a U.S. Citizen. - Bachelor’s degree in Design, Human-Computer Interaction, or a related field, or equivalent relevant work experience. - An active Secret security clearance or the ability to obtain one is required. - 2–4 years of professional experience in UI or product design preferred. Exceptional early-career candidates with strong portfolios will also be considered. - A portfolio demonstrating strong UI craft, design system work, and the ability to organize complex information and design multi-step user workflows. - Ability to present and walk through a previously designed user flow as part of the interview process, including explaining design decisions, constraints, and tradeoffs. - Strong proficiency in Figma, including components, variants, auto layout, and interactive prototyping. - Solid understanding of design systems, including how components, tokens, and patterns fit together and should be used and extended. - Strong foundational UI skills, including typography, visual hierarchy, layout, spacing, and color. - Experience turning wireframes, workflows, or requirements into high-fidelity, developer-ready prototypes. - Working knowledge of Section 508 compliance and WCAG accessibility standards as applied to UI design. - Comfort working in Jira or a similar ticketing or Agile tool to manage and complete assigned work. - Strong communication skills and openness to direction, critique, and mentorship. ### Preferred Qualifications - Experience designing data-rich applications, dashboards, enterprise software, decision-support tools, or other complex interfaces. - Experience presenting complex data, system states, dependencies, alerts, operational status, or similar information in a clear and usable way. - Working knowledge of foundational UX principles, including usability heuristics, information architecture, and interaction design, sufficient to ask informed questions about user flows and flag usability concerns. - Working knowledge of HTML/CSS sufficient to understand implementation feasibility and communicate effectively with engineers. - Experience contributing to or helping maintain a design system component library. - Experience working within Agile/Scrum ceremonies, including sprint planning, backlog refinement, and retrospectives. - Prior experience supporting DoD, federal, aviation, logistics, fleet management, or other government clients. - Basic motion or interaction design skills. - Experience using AI-assisted design, prototyping, or development tools such as Claude, ChatGPT/Codex, or comparable platforms. - Ability to use rapid prototyping techniques to demonstrate interactions and product concepts beyond static screens. **The Teams Behind the Technology** Aviation analytics platforms do not succeed on architecture alone. They succeed because multidisciplinary teams design, build, secure, and refine them with operational intent. SteerBridge’s aviation analytics capabilities are built by an integrated technology organization that includes: - Software developers - Data architects - Data scientists - Product and UI/UX designers - UX researchers - Aviation subject-matter experts Product designers work alongside UX researchers, engineers, data architects, data scientists, and aviation subject-matter experts to turn complex operational requirements and data into usable product experiences. This collaboration is especially important in environments where time pressure, operational risk, and accountability matter. **Tools and Artifacts** - Figma - Jira - AI-assisted design, prototyping, and development tools such as Claude, ChatGPT/Codex, or comparable platforms - Microsoft Office and collaboration tools **What Success Looks Like** - Designs accurately reflect validated user workflows and operational requirements. - Complex aviation data is presented in ways users can quickly understand and act on. - Figma prototypes are detailed enough for engineers to implement with minimal ambiguity. - New features consistently use and strengthen the AIRES design system. - Design QA identifies implementation issues before they negatively affect the user experience. - Product decisions are informed by user research, technical constraints, aviation domain expertise, and operational needs. - The designer communicates effectively across design, engineering, research, and product teams. - The designer grows from executing defined work to owning increasingly complex workflows and product features. - Products are intuitive, defensible, and trusted by the people who rely on them. ### Benefits - Health insurance - Dental insurance - Vision insurance - Life Insurance - 401(k) Retirement Plan with matching - Paid Time Off - Paid Federal Holidays