Principal Service Designer-Orange County – Center for Applied Research and Innovation-11-145

Principal Service Designer

The Salvation Army, an international movement, is an evangelical part of the universal Christian church. Its message is based on the Bible. Its ministry is motivated by the love of God. Its mission is to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and to meet human needs in His name without discrimination.

The Principal Service Designer leads strategic service and systems design efforts that improve how programs work and how people experience them. This role applies systems thinking and human-centered research to translate insight into real, implemented change that strengthens outcomes for people served and supports frontline teams.

The Principal Service Designer partners with leadership, staff, people with lived expertise, service providers, and city agencies to frame complex challenges, align cross-functional teams, and turn insight into actionable service strategies. As a senior contributor on CARI's interdisciplinary design team, this role helps identify, test, and scale innovative solutions addressing at least one of the Social Work Grand Challenges, with a special early emphasis on homelessness.

Sitting at the intersection of design, applied research, and implementation, the Principal Service Designer works closely with the Director of Design Strategy & Research and the design team to deliver high-impact redesign efforts and strengthen CARI's innovation infrastructure, including the emerging CARI 3:20 Innovation Lab, a faith-based, applied innovation and learning lab supporting experimentation, co-design, and capacity building across programs and partners.

This role is ideal for a creative, entrepreneurial designer who wants their work to matter, someone who enjoys complexity, builds alongside practitioners, and believes design can be a force for social good.

Ability to walk, stand, bend, squat, climb, kneel, and twist on an intermittent or sometimes continuous basis. Ability to grasp, push, pull objects such as files, file cabinet drawers, and reach overhead. Ability to operate computer, fax, and telephone. Ability to lift up to 40 lbs.

PAY RATE: $75k-$90k/yr.

Minimum Qualifications

• By virtue of its direct contact with, and representation to people who engage in Salvation Army programs, people who demonstrate an understanding of The Salvation Army's Christian mission are required for this position.
• 3–5 years of professional experience in service design, systems design, human-centered design, or related fields
• Demonstrated experience redesigning services or systems with measurable impact
• Strong facilitation skills and experience working across multiple stakeholders
• Portfolio required, demonstrating service redesign work and implementation outcomes
• Ability to work independently and collaboratively in a mission-driven, faith-based environment
• Experience working in homelessness, housing, health, or social services systems
• Experience facilitating community-based innovation events, design sprints, or hackathons
• Experience supporting learning labs or innovation teams

Skills, Knowledge & Abilities

• Human-centered design, service design, and applied design research.
• Qualitative research methods and working knowledge of quantitative research and survey design
• Ethical research with human subjects, including informed consent, confidentiality, and data privacy
• Research protocols and ethics-informed practices (IRB-adjacent experience preferred)
• Social justice, equity, trauma-informed practice, and design justice principles
• Familiarity with homelessness, housing, health, recovery, or employment systems (preferred)
• End-to-end service design execution (journey mapping, service blueprinting, prototyping, iteration)
• Facilitation of co-design sessions, workshops, and innovation sprints
• Research synthesis and translation of insights into actionable, visual artifacts
• Visual storytelling and communication for diverse audiences
• Curriculum co-design and applied learning facilitation (preferred)
• Ability to lead hands-on work while contributing to system-building efforts
• Ability to work effectively in diverse teams and community-based settings
• Ability to navigate ambiguity and help create structure over time
• Ability to balance rigor and compassion when working with sensitive data and populations
• Ability to remain curious, love learning, and continuously improve
• Ability to bring humility, flexibility, and humor to complex, mission-driven work
• Digital whiteboards and collaboration platforms (Mural, Miro, Fig Jam)
• Design and visualization tools (Canva, Figma, Adobe or similar)
• Survey and research platforms (Qualtrics, Google Forms, REDCap)
• Secure data management practices appropriate for sensitive information
• Comfort facilitating both in-person and virtual sessions
• Driving Test and clean MVR check
• If working in the vicinity of children a criminal background check is required with certification for Protect the Mission policies and procedures.
• Must have the ability to work with, direct, and relate well with co-workers, community partners/members, and…