Mission-Critical UX/UI Designer for Defense Systems

CACI International Inc; Sterling (VA); On-site; USD 73,000 - 149,000; Full time

Job summary

CACI International Inc seeks a UX/UI Designer to join the Phanos team building intelligence visualization and mission planning tools for military operators. You’ll design operator-centered interfaces that support high-stakes decision-making, focusing on workflow clarity, information hierarchy, and operator trust.

You’ll bridge product design, technical implementation, and operator research to create interfaces operators rely on in tactical environments.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Interactive Design, HCI, UX/UI Design with 3-5 years of UX/UI design experience in complex technical, government, or defense domains.
• Figma mastery: design systems, component libraries, prototyping, auto-layout, variants
• Design systems: experience building and maintaining scalable systems from scratch
• Prototyping: high-fidelity interactive prototypes for user testing
• User research methods: interviews, cognitive task analysis, persona development, workflow mapping
• Usability testing: A/B testing, rapid iteration cycles, feedback analysis
• Experience communicating designs with stakeholders including product owners, end users, development teams, and management
• Understanding of trade-offs between designs, technical feasibility, and maintenance
• Front-end fundamentals: HTML/CSS/JavaScript to collaborate with developers
• Basic back-end understanding: discuss APIs, data flows, and system architecture
• Accessibility: WCAG 2.2 / Section 508 compliance
• Portfolio required for consideration

Responsibilities

• Conduct structured operator research across mission phases and document workflows, information needs, and task prioritization patterns
• Create and validate operator personas based on real user interviews
• Build and maintain design system foundations in Figma including data visualization patterns, confidence indicators, and adaptive UI components
• Develop high-fidelity UI components and prototypes for inline annotations, dashboards, and mission-phase adaptive interfaces
• Lead cohesive look-and-feel design and standardized user experience across applications
• Collaborate between creative strategy, UX, visual design, development team, and client to create effective design strategies
• Develop compelling, user-focused experiences aligned with mission objectives
• Run rapid iteration cycles with operator feedback and conduct A/B testing to validate design decisions
• Collaborate with developers to implement UI components and ensure design system integrity
• Work with data scientists to translate complex data into clear visualizations
• Design geospatial interface patterns for map-based intelligence visualization
• Ensure WCAG 2.2 / Section 508 accessibility compliance for operational environments
• Ensure product quality and timeliness, provide periodic performance reports
• Mentor junior team members as experience grows

Skills

Figma mastery

Design systems

Prototyping

User research

Usability testing

Front-end basics HTML/CSS/JavaScript

Stakeholder communication

Education

Bachelor's or Master's in Interactive Design, HCI, UX/UI Design

Tools

Figma

Prototype tools

Job description

CACI International Inc seeks a UX/UI Designer to join the Phanos team building intelligence visualization and mission planning tools for military operators. You’ll design operator-centered interfaces that support high-stakes decision-making, focusing on workflow clarity, information hierarchy, and operator trust.

You’ll bridge product design, technical implementation, and operator research to create interfaces operators rely on in tactical environments.