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About the Role

LINK is seeking a Senior Design Strategist to lead and execute innovative design strategies, collaborate with internal teams and executive-level clients, and drive impactful visual storytelling. This role involves understanding client challenges, developing compelling narratives, and implementing design strategies aligned with client goals and brand identity.

Responsibilities

• Serve as a trusted advisor to clients by framing complex challenges, identifying opportunities, and applying human-centered design approaches.
• Partner directly with client stakeholders to understand organizational priorities, user needs, operational constraints, and desired outcomes.
• Lead the development of design strategy approaches that align stakeholder needs, business objectives, and mission requirements.
• Guide cross-functional teams through ambiguity, helping stakeholders build alignment and make informed decisions.
• Identify opportunities to create tangible business value and support long-term client success.
• Lead mixed-method research efforts, including stakeholder interviews, contextual inquiry, observations, journey mapping, ecosystem analysis, and systems mapping activities.
• Synthesize qualitative and quantitative findings into actionable insights, opportunity areas, strategic recommendations, and design directions.
• Apply systems thinking to identify patterns, dependencies, root causes, and opportunities across complex organizational environments.
• Translate technical, operational, and policy-focused challenges into human-centered insights and strategic considerations.
• Guide research activities that inform organizational transformation, service design, experience design, and strategic planning efforts.
• Develop compelling visual frameworks, journey maps, service blueprints, ecosystem maps, decision-support tools, and strategic narratives.
• Shape storytelling approaches that help stakeholders understand challenges, opportunities, tradeoffs, and future-state possibilities.
• Collaborate with information designers and strategists to develop executive-level deliverables.
• Establish quality standards for design strategy deliverables and provide guidance that improves consistency across engagements.
• Ensure visual outputs effectively communicate research findings, strategic recommendations, and organizational priorities.
• Design and facilitate workshops, design sprints, stakeholder engagements, and co-creation activities.
• Develop facilitation approaches, agendas, exercises, and collaborative experiences that enable productive dialogue and structured problem-solving.
• Synthesize workshop outputs into actionable findings, recommendations, and implementation considerations.
• Help stakeholders navigate competing priorities, organizational complexity, and change initiatives through structured facilitation and engagement.
• Guide teams in applying human-centered design methods throughout project lifecycles.
• Mentor teammates through coaching, knowledge sharing, and constructive feedback.
• Model LINK values and contribute to a collaborative, inclusive, and high-performing team culture.
• Share tools, methods, frameworks, and lessons learned that improve the quality and consistency of work across engagements.
• Support development of emerging practitioners by providing guidance on research, facilitation, synthesis, and visual storytelling approaches.
• Contribute to the continued evolution of LINK’s design strategy practice through innovation, experimentation, and continuous learning.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Design, Communication, Sociology, Psychology, Human-Centered Design, or a related field.
• 10+ years of experience in design strategy, service design, user experience, research, consulting, communications, or a related field.
• Ability to obtain and maintain a security clearance.
• Strong expertise in human-centered design, design thinking, systems thinking, facilitation, and strategic storytelling.
• Well-versed in a variety of design strategy disciplines and able to select the appropriate approach for a given challenge.
• Experience designing and facilitating workshops, stakeholder engagements, and collaborative working sessions.
• Demonstrated ability to lead complex research efforts and translate findings into actionable insights, strategic recommendations, and organizational outcomes.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to collaborate effectively with clients and cross-functional teams.
• Demonstrated ability to navigate ambiguity and guide stakeholders through complex challenges and decision-making processes.
• Demonstrated ability to balance multiple priorities and deadlines while maintaining high standards of quality and client service.
• Capable of mentoring and coaching others.
• Approaches work with optimism, openness to new ideas, and a collaborative mindset.
• Portfolio that demonstrates both design execution and strategic decision-making.

Skills

• Human-centered design
• Design thinking
• Systems thinking
• Facilitation
• Strategic storytelling
• Design strategy
• Service design
• User experience
• Research
• Consulting
• Communications
• Workshop design
• Stakeholder engagement
• Collaborative working sessions
• Research leadership
• Data-driven insights
• Cross-functional collaboration
• Ambiguity navigation
• Mentoring
• Coaching
• Visual storytelling
• Mixed-method research
• Stakeholder interviews
• Contextual inquiry
• Observations
• Journey mapping
• Ecosystem analysis
• Systems mapping
• Qualitative synthesis
• Quantitative synthesis
• Strategic recommendations
• Design directions
• Organizational transformation
• Service design
• Experience design
• Strategic planning
• Visual frameworks
• Service blueprints
• Decision-support tools
• Strategic narratives
• Information design
• Design sprints
• Co-creation activities
• Problem-solving
• Change management

Location

• Washington D.C. area

Work Type

• Hybrid
• Full-time
• Occasional travel

Experience Level

• Senior
• 10+ years

Education Level

• Bachelor’s degree in Design, Communication, Sociology, Psychology, Human-Centered Design, or a related field.

Salary/Compensations

• $112,000-$151,000

Benefits

• $100 monthly internet/cell phone stipend
• LINK sponsored healthcare benefits including medical, dental, vision
• Company-paid Short Term Disability Insurance
• 401K with employer contribution of up to 4%
• 11 Federal Holidays per year
• 15 days of Paid Time Off (PTO) per year
• Paid Holiday Time Off (Christmas Eve through the New Year)
• Annual bonus plan participation
• Annual profit sharing participation
• $2,000 Learning and Development program reimbursement
• Technology package that includes a LINK-owned MacBook Pro, monitor, mouse and keyboard

About the Company

• LINK is a fast-growing Woman Owned Small Business (WOSB) that leverages human-centered design to support strategy, innovation, communication, change, and branding within the federal government and adjacent industry partners.
• At LINK, we partner with engineers, futurists, and thought leaders to untangle complexity, discover opportunity, and communicate clearly with visual stories.

Equal Opportunity

• EOE