Product Designer (1099 Contract) | Active Secret Clearance Required

defcon; Stati Uniti; Remoto; USD 83.000 - 165.000; Tempo pieno

Descrizione del lavoro

defcon is seeking a hands-on product designer to own end-to-end design for software addressing complex operational challenges. You will collaborate with engineers, product partners, subject-matter experts, and users from discovery to release, delivering information-rich interfaces and scalable design systems.

This 1099 independent contractor role requires 4–5 years shipping product designs, strong Figma skills, and experience with enterprise software.

Competenze

• Four to five years of experience shipping product designs, with a portfolio showing process and decision-making.
• Strong Figma skills, including components, variants, auto layout, and variables.
• Experience designing complex, information-dense enterprise, analytics, logistics, or operational software.
• Working knowledge of front-end concepts such as component structure, state, responsive behavior, and design tokens.
• Experience applying research, discovery, or competitive analysis to product decisions.
• Active Secret clearance and U.S. citizenship.

Mansioni

• Lead design from problem framing and user flows through wireframes, detailed interfaces, and design quality checks.
• Create clear experiences for dense data, maps, timelines, simulation results, and workflows used by people in different roles.
• Build and maintain design system components, tokens, variants, and documentation in partnership with front-end engineers.
• Conduct lightweight discovery with subject-matter experts and end users, and turn findings into useful team artifacts.
• Design access, permissions, authentication, empty and error states, and interactions that support audit needs.
• Present design decisions, take part in critique, and build alignment with technical and nontechnical partners.

Conoscenze

Figma

Design systems

UX design

Stakeholder communication

Portfolio

Strumenti

React

TypeScript

CSS

Descrizione del lavoro

Role overview

Own end-to-end product design for software that helps people understand and respond to complex operational challenges. You'll work closely with engineers, product partners, subject-matter experts, and users to turn ambiguous needs into clear, information-rich interfaces and guide features from discovery through release. This is a hands-on contract role scheduled for 40 hours per week.

Responsibilities

• Lead design from problem framing and user flows through wireframes, detailed interfaces, and design quality checks.
• Create clear experiences for dense data, maps, timelines, simulation results, and workflows used by people in different roles.
• Build and maintain design system components, tokens, variants, and documentation in partnership with front-end engineers.
• Conduct lightweight discovery with subject-matter experts and end users, and turn findings into useful team artifacts.
• Design access, permissions, authentication, empty and error states, and interactions that support audit needs.
• Present design decisions, take part in critique, and build alignment with technical and nontechnical partners.
• Treat accessibility as a core requirement, including WCAG 2.1 AA and Section 508.

Requirements

• Four to five years of experience shipping product designs, with a portfolio showing process and decision-making.
• Strong Figma skills, including components, variants, auto layout, and variables.
• Practical experience creating and maintaining a design system, including tokens, component APIs, documentation, version changes, and alignment with code.
• Experience designing complex, information-dense enterprise, analytics, logistics, or operational software.
• Working knowledge of front-end concepts such as component structure, state, responsive behavior, and design tokens.
• Experience applying research, discovery, or competitive analysis to product decisions.
• Strong collaboration, stakeholder communication, and presentation skills; able to explain trade-offs and work independently.
• Active Secret clearance and U.S. citizenship.

Nice to have

• Clearance above Secret; experience in defense, government, regulated, or compliance-heavy products.
• Contributions to front-end or design system code, especially with React, TypeScript, or CSS.
• Familiarity with map interfaces, scheduling and timeline views, simulation tools, classified or air-gapped settings, or FedRAMP and IL5 constraints.

Benefits and work setup

This is a 1099 independent contractor engagement. Compensation depends on experience, qualifications, scope, and expected effort.