Digital Service Design Manager - Hartford, CT​/Hybrid

Digital Service Design Manager

Hartford, CT/Hybrid

12 Months Contract

This is Us

The State of Connecticut is embarking upon a digital transformation to uplift the lives and well-being of our residents and employees. Our goal is to improve access to our programs and services, making interaction with government easier. When you join the Connecticut Digital Service, you’ll be part of a team creating simple experiences personalized for everyone. If you enjoy solving complex problems with a curious, supportive, high‑performing team, then the State of Connecticut is the place for you.

• Big Picture Thinking — You strive to improve internal processes and externally facing solutions.
• User‑centric — You derive joy from working with people to drive user‑centered research and testing.
• Service‑Oriented — You are passionate about government innovation and improving services for citizens.

We believe service access is a social justice issue and people closest to service challenges should inform service improvement efforts. As a result, we’re looking for candidates who are passionate about evidence‑based decision‑making, dedicated to ethical and inclusive design, effective communicators, thrive while collaborating, and committed to the in‑depth work required to drive lasting change within a large organization and complex service environment.

As the Service Design Manager, you’ll report to the DAS‑BITS Deputy Director of Digital Product and lead service design projects from project scoping to research, design strategy, and implementation. You’ll collaborate with team members to transform the digital team’s work into a rigorous and sustainable practice at the State of Connecticut.

As a senior member of the team, you’re responsible for leading and implementing all aspects of a project life cycle—including strategy, design, implementation, and evaluation. In addition, you’ll mentor emerging team members by helping to expand their skill sets and deliver exceptional work. Lastly, you’ll amplify the Digital Service’s service design approach, progress project work, and help build the State of Connecticut’s service design practice.

An ideal candidate should be a talented and knowledgeable designer with fresh, creative ideas, and an excellent eye for detail. In addition to understanding user experience design and development methodologies, the candidate should also have experience working in an Agile environment. You should not be afraid to lead by example, knowing when and where you should own the outcome yourself or let others carry the torch.

• Design and facilitate thoughtful and ethical research (in collaboration with the team’s User Research Manager) to understand the service‑related needs of residents, staff, leaders, and other stakeholders.
• Synthesize research into insights and well‑defined opportunity areas for intervention. Help translate these into actionable steps while communicating with people who are often unfamiliar to design and research methods.
• Develop feasible, person‑centered, and comprehensive service strategies that improve resident interactions with government and staff work experiences.
• Design service solutions that work across channels of experience—including digital and non‑digital touchpoints (e.g., in‑person interactions and physical service environments).

• Build the State’s Service Design team through hiring, growing, and retaining high‑performing teammates.
• Drive a practice in mixed methods research (qualitative and quantitative) including when and how to apply methods throughout the product development lifecycle.
• Set standards of practice for and with service design team members.
• Expand team members’ skill sets through regular feedback, learning sessions, and one‑on‑one mentorship.
• Design and facilitate skill‑shares with State colleagues, so they can apply strategic design methods to their work.

• Use iterative processes to ensure project deliverables; like service blueprints, process flows, stakeholder maps, and project reports, are rigorously executed.
• Choose the right deliverable for the right kind of conversation.
• Visually…