Human-Centered Designer Job Washington area,District of Columbia USA,Software Development

The Opportunity

We've shipped the first generation of agentic AI, and now we're moving quickly to go deeper with user‑built agents, multi‑agent orchestration, and platform teams that can extend themselves. We are a small, startup‑minded team that ships fast and owns what we build end‑to‑end. We are looking for a human‑centered designer to own the end‑to‑end experience of ARPA‑H's production AI assistant GRACE, including how users understand it, trust it, and get real work done with it.

Designing for agentic AI is hard, output is probabilistic, workflows are open‑ended, and trust is earned interaction by interaction. You will shape how GRACE feels, while operating within the privacy, security, and responsible‑use requirements of our mission and the federal environment.

Join us. The world can’t wait.

What You’ll Work On

Own the design of GRACE across research, interaction, and visual design, being accountable for whether the experience works for users.
Design interaction patterns for agentic AI, including conversational flows, tool‑call and reasoning visibility, human‑in‑the‑loop confirmations, error and uncertainty states, and graceful handling of partial or long‑running responses.
Design how GRACE presents rich output legibly and trust worthily, including citations, tables, diagrams, maps, generated images, and long‑form results.
Bring and apply industry best practices and emerging design patterns specific to agentic AI, including agent transparency, cont rollability, memory and context, multi‑agent workflows, and letting users build and direct their own agents.
Create the flows, wireframes, prototypes, and high‑fidelity designs that turn ambiguous problems into shippable interfaces.
Own and evolve a design system so the product stays consistent, accessible, and fast to extend.
Talk to ARPA‑H users and comprehend their workflows, goals, and where GRACE helps or gets in the way.
Run lightweight, high‑velocity research through interviews, usability tests, and concept validation that fit a team that ships weekly, not quarterly.
Turn research into clear, prioritized insights that the team can act on, and close the loop by measuring whether changes helped.
Build a durable understanding of who GRACE serves and advocate for them in every decision.
Design for trust as a first‑class outcome.
Design for the realities of AI, including hallucination, uncertainty, latency, and failure.
Ensure accessibility is designed in from the start.
Bring genuine care for the sensitivity of the mission.
Work hand‑in‑hand with engineers, the applied researcher, and product to translate design intent into shipped product, including closely with front‑end so fidelity and interaction detail survive to production.
Prototype quickly, get it in front of users, and iterate.
Communicate design decisions clearly to both designers and non‑designers, and make the rationale, not just the mockup, legible to the team.

You Have

7+ years of experience in a product design or UX design field, displaying a portfolio of shipped products.
Experience designing for AI, LLM, chat, or agentic products, including streaming responses, citation and source display, tool‑call visibility, and for uncertain or probabilistic output.
Experience across the full design process, including research, interaction design, and visual or UI design.
Experience with modern design tools such as Figma, including components, prototyping, and design systems.
Experience planning and running interviews and usability tests, and turning findings into decisions.
Experience shipping complex, interactive products in high‑velocity environments where you owned the experience end‑to‑end.
Knowledge of industry best practices and design patterns specific to agentic AI, including agent transparency, cont rollability, human‑in‑the‑loop, and multi‑agent workflows.
Ability to pay strict attention to detail with a high bar for quality and commitment to accessibility, including WCAG or Section 508.
Ability to be a self‑starter and clear communicator who works with a high sense of urgency, gives and receives feedback well, works closely with engineers, and makes the people around them…