Senior Content Designer & User Researcher, Permitting

City and County of San Francisco; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 90,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

City and County of San Francisco is seeking a Content Designer & User Researcher for the PermitSF initiative within the Planning Department. The role focuses on end-to-end design, user research, and content governance to ensure accessible, plain-language permitting experiences.

The incumbent translates complex requirements into usable content, develops research plans and findings, and collaborates with cross-functional teams to drive continuous improvement across permit types.

Qualifications

• Experience designing content for complex digital services, forms, transactional workflows, or government services.
• Experience applying UX writing, editing, and information-architecture skills to simplify complex legal, policy, operational, and technical requirements.
• Experience planning and conducting user research with varied audiences and applying findings to content, service, process, product, and system configuration decisions.

Responsibilities

• Plan and conduct user research with applicants, residents, businesses, permit staff, and other users during discovery, design, testing, launch, and continuous improvement.
• Translate research evidence into prioritized recommendations, acceptance criteria, user stories, and product feature requests for PermitSF leadership and the platform vendor.
• Facilitate content-design critiques, co-design sessions, workshops, and cross-functional reviews to resolve conflicting requirements and secure clear, implementable decisions.
• Plan and facilitate soft launches and guided first-use sessions with selected customers; collect real-time feedback and assess readiness for broader release.
• Identify and document content defects, usability issues, bugs, and configuration problems; coordinate resolution and retesting.

Skills

Content design

UX writing

User research

Content strategy

Evaluation and testing

Education

Associate degree or equivalent in related field

Job description

City and County of San Francisco is seeking a Content Designer & User Researcher for the PermitSF initiative within the Planning Department. The role focuses on end-to-end design, user research, and content governance to ensure accessible, plain-language permitting experiences.

The incumbent translates complex requirements into usable content, develops research plans and findings, and collaborates with cross-functional teams to drive continuous improvement across permit types.