Principal / Lead Designer - Work Pass Integrated System (WINS)

government technology agency; Singapore; On-site; SGD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible work arrangements

Job summary

GovTech is the lead agency driving Singapore’s Smart Nation and public sector digital transformation. As a Principal / Lead Designer for WINS, you will operate at the system and programme level, shaping experience strategy and driving high-quality design outcomes at scale.

This role partners with design managers, product, operations, policy, and engineering to ensure design advances WINS’ strategic outcomes and MOM’s service vision.

Qualifications

• 15+ years of experience in system design, service design, product design, or design strategy with impact on service delivery and performance.
• Proven experience leading design across complex, multi-stakeholder environments.
• Strong systems and service design thinking connecting user needs with operations, policy, and technology.
• Experience building design or innovation capabilities from scratch that scale across organizations and deliver value.
• Experience in regulated or high-stakes environments (public sector, healthcare, financial services) with compliance awareness.
• Experience designing for both digital and physical service touchpoints within government services.
• Deep understanding of design methods and frameworks, applied pragmatically.
• A collaborative leader who builds trust, alignment, and momentum across teams.
• Excellent stakeholder management, facilitation, communication, and storytelling skills.

Responsibilities

• Own the end-to-end experience vision across products, ensuring coherence, usability, inclusivity, and consistency.
• Identify systemic pain points and translate policy/technical/operational challenges into clear design directions.
• Shape and steward common capabilities to scale solutions quickly and guide programme delivery priorities.
• Establish and evolve design standards, frameworks, and quality bars from discovery to post-launch iteration.
• Strengthen data and measurement framework to track experience quality and outcomes.
• Collaborate with product, engineering, operations, and policy leaders to align design decisions.
• Foster an inclusive team culture and mentor designers, supporting capability-building.
• Drive validation of new design approaches and AI tools to stay ahead in public service design.
• Support hiring and onboarding efforts to build a diverse design practice.

Skills

Systems design

Service design

Product design

Design strategy

Stakeholder management

Storytelling

Collaboration

Mentoring

Job description

GovTech is the lead agency driving Singapore’s Smart Nation initiatives and public sector digital transformation. As the Centre of Excellence for Infocomm Technology and Smart Systems (ICT & SS), GovTech develops the Singapore Government’s capabilities in Data Science & Artificial Intelligence, Application Development, Smart City Technology, Digital Infrastructure, and Cybersecurity.

At GovTech, we offer you a purposeful career to make lives better where we empower our people to master their craft through robust learning and development opportunities all year round.

Play a part in Singapore’s vision to build a Smart Nation and embark on your meaningful journey to build tech for public good. Join us to advance our mission and shape your future with us today!

Learn more about GovTech at tech.gov.sg.

About Work Pass Integrated System (WINS)

WINS is a large-scale ops-tech transformation initiative by Ministry of Manpower's Work Pass Division (WPD). It is a multi-year effort to replace legacy systems and consolidate work pass transactions into an integrated platform that supports policy agility and enables adaptable, future-ready services.

Design in WINS plays a strategic role in shaping coherent end-to-end experiences across multiple systems, business stakeholders, and operational workflows.

[What you will be working on]

As a Principal / Lead Designer for WINS, you will operate at the system and programme level, shaping experience strategy and driving high-quality design outcomes at scale.

This role leads through influence, standards, and alignment. You will work closely with design managers, product leaders, operations, policy, and engineering partners to ensure design contributes to WINS’ strategic outcomes and MOM’s broader service vision.

• Own the end-to-end experience vision, ensuring key user journeys remain coherent, usable, inclusive, and consistent across products, systems, and touchpoints.
• Identify systemic user and operational pain points, help teams reframe complex policy, technical, and workflow challenges into clear experience vision, principles, and actionable design direction.
• Shape and steward common capabilities (e.g. shared journey patterns, service-level foundations, cross-product UX consistency, and emerging technology opportunities such as automation and AI-assisted workflows), enabling teams to scale solutions fast, accelerate learning through test & iteration, and guide programme delivery priorities.
• Establish and evolve design standards, frameworks, and quality bars across the programme, defining what “success” looks like from discovery and concept development through delivery, post-launch measurement, and iteration.
• Strengthen data and measurement framework to track experience quality, user outcomes, and operational efficiency. Demonstrate design impact on policy objectives and operational performance.
• Partner with cross-functional leaders (product, engineering, operations, and policy leaders) to align design decisions across tracks, communicate trade-offs clearly, and ensure experiences meet user, operational, and policy objectives across the lifecycle.
• Shape a strong, inclusive team culture across functions in WINS and WPD stakeholders by introducing rituals and practices that foster collaboration, shared learning, and psychological safety. Lead through influence by mentoring designers, facilitating critique and shared learning, strengthening design maturity, and supporting capability-building.
• Drive incremental validation of new design approaches and AI tools to keep designer at the forefront of public service design.
• Support hiring and onboarding efforts in Govtech, actively contributing to a diverse, inclusive design practice where all voices are valued.

[What we are looking for]

• 15+ years of experience in system design, service design, product design, or design strategy, with demonstrated impact on service delivery outcomes and operational performance. Experience in regulated environments (government, healthcare, financial services) or compliance-driven contexts strongly preferred.
• Proven experience leading design across complex, multi-stakeholder, multi-product environments.
• Strong systems and service design thinking, with the ability to connect user needs, operations, policy, and technology.
• Experience building design or innovation capabilities from scratch - establishing labs, frameworks, or practices that scale across organizations, generates tangible value through cost reduction, productivity improvement, or operational efficiency.
• Track record of working across regulated or high-stakes environments (e.g., public sector, healthcare, financial services), demonstrating fluency with compliance requirements, policy constraints, and multi-layered stakeholder management.
• Experience designing for both digital and physical service touchpoints, understanding how government services operate across channels.
• Deep understanding of design methods and frameworks, applied pragmatically.
• A collaborative leader who builds trust, alignment, and momentum across teams.
• Excellent stakeholder management, facilitation, communication, and storytelling skills.

You’ll thrive here if you:

• Enjoy making sense of complexity and ambiguity.
• Care about outcomes and long-term impact, not just deliverables.
• Influence through clarity, empathy, and credibility.
• Are motivated by improving public services at scale.
• Think like a business partner, not just a design advocate. Understanding trade-offs between user needs, operational constraints, and organizational objectives.
• Have built something from nothing. Whether that's a new capability, a team, a framework, or a service.
• See design as a means to measurable impact, not just better experiences.

GovTech is an equal opportunity employer committed to fostering an inclusive workplace that values diverse voices and perspectives, as we believe it is key to innovation.

• Our employee benefits are based on a total rewards approach, offering a holistic and market-competitive suite of perks.
• We champion flexible work arrangements (subject to your job role) and trust you to manage your time to deliver your best.

Learn more about life inside GovTech at go.gov.sg/GovTechCareers

Please note that this will be a 2-year fixed term contract.