Senior Design Strategist

Location: We are actively hiring in the Washington D.C. area.

Who We Are: 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. 

Let us be your partners in change.

 

Position Summary

The Senior Design Strategist serves as a trusted advisor to clients, partnering directly with senior leaders, engineers, and cross-functional teams to solve complex organizational challenges through human-centered design, systems thinking, research, and strategic visualization.

This role leads significant portions of client engagements, guiding the development of research-driven insights, strategic frameworks, workshop outcomes, and visual narratives that help organizations align stakeholders, navigate complexity, and drive meaningful change. Through a combination of facilitation, synthesis, storytelling, and design leadership, the Senior Design Strategist translates ambiguity into clarity and transforms complex information into actionable strategies and experiences.

The Senior Design Strategist elevates the quality, rigor, and effectiveness of design strategy work across engagements while mentoring teammates, sharing expertise, and helping strengthen LINK’s design strategy practice.

Key Responsibilities

Client Partnership & Design Strategy Leadership

• Serves as a trusted advisor to clients by framing complex challenges, identifying opportunities, and applying human-centered design approaches to inform strategic decision-making.
• Partners directly with client stakeholders to understand organizational priorities, user needs, operational constraints, and desired outcomes.
• Leads the development of design strategy approaches that align stakeholder needs, business objectives, and mission requirements.
• Guides cross-functional teams through ambiguity, helping stakeholders build alignment and make informed decisions.
• Identifies opportunities to create tangible business value and support long-term client success.

Research, Insight Development & Systems Thinking

• Leads mixed-method research efforts, including stakeholder interviews, contextual inquiry, observations, journey mapping, ecosystem analysis, and systems mapping activities.
• Synthesizes qualitative and quantitative findings into actionable insights, opportunity areas, strategic recommendations, and design directions.
• Applies systems thinking to identify patterns, dependencies, root causes, and opportunities across complex organizational environments.
• Translates technical, operational, and policy-focused challenges into human-centered insights and strategic considerations.
• Guides research activities that inform organizational transformation, service design, experience design, and strategic planning efforts.

Strategic Visualization & Storytelling

• Develops compelling visual frameworks, journey maps, service blueprints, ecosystem maps, decision-support tools, and strategic narratives that communicate complex information clearly.
• Shapes storytelling approaches that help stakeholders understand challenges, opportunities, tradeoffs, and future-state possibilities.
• Collaborates with information designers and strategists to develop executive-level deliverables that support alignment and decision-making.
• Establishes quality standards for design strategy deliverables and provides guidance that improves consistency across engagements.
• Ensures visual outputs effectively communicate research findings, strategic recommendations, and organizational priorities.

Workshop Facilitation & Stakeholder Alignment

• Designs and facilitates workshops, design sprints, stakeholder engagements, and co-creation activities that advance strategic objectives and drive organizational alignment.
• Develops facilitation approaches, agendas, exercises, and collaborative experiences that enable productive dialogue and structured problem-solving.
• Synthesizes workshop outputs into actionable findings, recommendations, and implementation considerations.
• Helps stakeholders navigate competing priorities, organizational complexity, and change initiatives through structured facilitation and engagement.
• Guides teams in applying human-centered design methods throughout project lifecycles.

Team Development & Leadership

• Mentors teammates through coaching, knowledge sharing, and constructive feedback.
• Models LINK values and contributes to a collaborative, inclusive, and high-performing team culture.
• Shares tools, methods, frameworks, and lessons learned that improve the quality and consistency of work across engagements.
• Supports development of emerging practitioners by providing guidance on research, facilitation, synthesis, and visual storytelling approaches.
• Contributes to the continued evolution of LINK’s design strategy practice through innovation, experimentation, and continuous learning.

Required Qualifications

• 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 that drive alignment and informed decision-making.
• Demonstrated ability to lead complex research efforts and translate findings into actionable insights, strategic recommendations, and organizational outcomes. 
• Strong written and verbal communication skills and the 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

Work Schedule:

• Hybrid, 2-3 days per week on-site
• Full time, 40 hours per week
• Occasional onsite presence may be required for client meetings, presentations, or working sessions. This could include local or national travel, depending on the locations of the employee and client.

Salary: We’re committed to offering competitive compensation. While the salary range for this position is $112,000-$151,000, your final offer may be adjusted based on factors like experience and location.

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

EOE