Staff Product Designer (Design Systems & Operations)

Ad Hoc is a technology company that empowers organizations to deliver scalable, impactful digital services. Using modern, agile methods, our team creates products that meet people’s needs and transform their experience of government.

Our collaborations have shaped some of the defining moments in public-sector service delivery. We’ve helped build products that connect Veterans to tailored services, help millions access affordable health care, and support important programs like Head Start. As we work with agencies to deliver critical services, we’re also changing how the government approaches technology.

Our culture, communications, and tools are built for remote work, enabling us to bring together top talent nationwide. At Ad Hoc, remote life empowers our teams to design work environments that fit their lives and that foster flexibility and collaboration to achieve positive outcomes for our customers.

Ad Hoc values acceptance, accountability, and humility. We aren’t heroes. We learn from our mistakes and improve the process for the next time. We build small, inclusive teams to collaborate closely with our partners to solve the right problems and deliver software that works.

The Veterans Affairs business unit helps transform the VA into a modern digital services organization where Veteran outcomes are at the center of every effort. We partner with the VA to design and deliver seamless user experiences for Veterans, their families and caregivers, and VA employees. By applying better practices in service design, product management, and technology, we enable the VA to increase the use, quality, and reliability of services and decrease the time Veterans spend waiting for outcomes.

The Staff Product Designer (Design Systems & Operations) is a high-impact, proactive individual contributor who sits at the intersection of design craft, systems thinking, and operational efficiency. Rather than designing standalone features or end-to-end user flows for a specific team, this role is responsible for the overall cohesion, scaling, and operational health of the entire portal ecosystem. You will establish "sources of truth" for design assets, audit inconsistencies across channels (e.g., web and mobile), and empower distributed UX teams through training, tooling (including AI), and component guidance.

This is a role for a senior, proactive "builder and systemizer" who thrives on creating structure, driving adoption, and unblocking other designers without needing a traditional management track.

Design Systems, Governance & Craft

• Source of Truth Stewardship: Create, maintain, and govern master Figma libraries and templates to ensure a single source of truth across all teams.
• Component Adoption & Guidance: Help tool teams proactively understand what components to use, when, and why during the design discovery phase, through organized design crits and syncs.
• System Audits & Gap Analysis: Conduct regular cross-channel audits (e.g., Web vs. Mobile) to identify inconsistencies; and advocate for standardization (e.g., alert hierarchies, moving list-views to unified layouts).
• Bridge to Engineering & Accessibility: Surface common or trending problems when multiple teams require patterns missing from the core design system; coordinate with Communities of Practice (CoP) and Accessibility (a11y) teams to create, update, improve, or contribute those assets into the system.

Design Operations & Enablement

• Process & Documentation: Author and maintain clear documentation, process templates, and onboarding materials to streamline how UXers work.
• Tooling Innovation & Training: Act as the team’s Figma and AI expert. Dedicate time to exploring design AI tooling, documenting efficiencies, and running "deep dive" training sessions for the broader UX team.
• Proactive Problem Solving: Take direct ownership of ecosystem-wide fixes and templates rather than waiting for individual tool teams to ticket the work.

Cross-Portal Cohesion & Strategic Alignment

• Advocate for design consistency in the horizontal user journey: Help connect the cross portal journey by advocating for and enabling consistent design logic across tools.
• Cross-Portal Design: In collaboration with UXR Lead and tool team UX, responsible for design discovery and executing design needs (i.e., mocking designs up for handoff) for health portal landing page, portal-wide alerts, common patterns, error states, and general cross-portal experiences.
• Stakeholder Alignment: Maintain regular syncs with portal stakeholders to ensure work aligns with overarching organizational goals.
• Horizon & Discovery Support: Partner with the UXR Lead to support early-stage discovery and experimental design for the horizon team as needed.

• Bachelor’s degree and 7+ years of experience

  • Relevant years of experience may be substituted for education

• Experience with design software such as Figma, Miro, Adobe or other designer tools

• Experience with the Department of Veterans Affairs