Service Design Lead

Service Design Jobs; New York (NY); On-site; USD 140,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Service Design Jobs seeks a seasoned Service Design Lead to operate at strategic and systems levels, shaping the future of complex digital financial services. You will design end-to-end services, ecosystems, operating models, and business capabilities that support modern digital banking experiences.

You’ll join a collaborative team with emphasis on craft, impact, and open sharing of work, while also delivering hands-on service design excellence.

Qualifications

• 10–12 years of relevant experience.
• Deep expertise in service design, systems thinking, research, and complex journey mapping.
• Experience in regulated environments such as financial services, healthcare, or insurance.
• Experience working across design, product, engineering, operations, and business teams.
• Ability to operate strategically while remaining hands-on.
• Strong facilitation, storytelling, and executive-level communication skills.
• Experience incorporating generative AI and emerging technologies.
• Experience mentoring other designers and elevating design craft.

Responsibilities

• Design and orchestrate end-to-end services, ecosystems, operating models, and business capabilities.
• Lead collaborative design and decision-making with clients, designers, engineers, product managers, and leaders.
• Produce high-quality artifacts including service blueprints, journey maps, operating models, and prototypes.

Skills

Strategic design

Research & Evidence

AI-enabled design

Process innovation

Artifact excellence

Prototyping

Facilitation

Outcomes & measurement

Storytelling

Collaboration

Mentorship

Technology fluency

Job description

Service Design Lead

We are seeking a seasoned Service Design Lead who can operate at both the strategic and systems level to help shape the future of complex digital financial services.

In this role, you will design and orchestrate end-to-end services, ecosystems, operating models, and business capabilities that support modern digital banking experiences. You’ll bring together client insight, business strategy, operational realities, and emerging technology to design services that are human-centered, resilient, scalable, and commercially viable. You’ll join a highly collaborative design team with a strong emphasis on craft, impact, and sharing work openly. This is a leadership-level role that remains highly hands-on, with an expectation that you can set strategic direction while still producing exceptional service design work yourself.

What We’re Looking For

• Strategic Design: Translate complex and ambiguous challenges into clear service concepts, operating models, business models, and service blueprints.
• Research & Evidence: Plan and conduct qualitative and quantitative discovery, connecting client, employee, business, operational, and platform needs to inform decisions.
• AI-Enabled Service Design: Use generative AI and emerging tools throughout the service design process, including research planning, synthesis, pattern identification, journey and blueprint creation, concept exploration, prototyping, and presentation of findings. Apply appropriate judgment around accuracy, bias, privacy, traceability, and regulatory risk.
• Service Design & Process Innovation: Map journeys, ecosystems, service processes, policies, and dependencies to identify root causes, simplify complexity, and uncover opportunities for product, platform, and operational innovation.
• Artifact Excellence: Create high-quality, decision-ready artifacts including service blueprints, journey and ecosystem maps, research readouts, operating models, prototypes, and executive narratives.
• Prototyping & Testing: Build, test, and refine concepts, pilots, and simulations to validate assumptions and identify potential service and operational risks.
• Facilitation & Alignment: Bring together clients, designers, engineers, product managers, operations partners, and business leaders to navigate complex decisions and turn shared understanding into action.
• Outcomes & Measurement: Define hypotheses, success measures, and learning plans while connecting service design decisions to client outcomes, operational performance, commercial value, and risk reduction.
• Storytelling & Communication: Turn complex research and systems insights into clear, compelling, and actionable narratives for working teams, senior stakeholders, and executives.
• Collaboration: Work openly and collaboratively, sharing work early, inviting feedback, and contributing to a design culture with a high standard for quality.
• Mentorship & Leadership: Serve as a mentor and thought partner, helping elevate the craft of other designers and strengthening the broader service design practice.
• Technology Fluency: Understand how APIs, orchestration layers, cloud-native platforms, data, automation, and fintech technologies come together to support complex, resilient service ecosystems.

Ideal Background

• Typically 10–12 years of relevant experience
• Deep expertise in service design, systems thinking, research, and complex journey/service mapping
• Previous experience within a regulated environment such as financial services, healthcare, or insurance
• Experience working across design, product, engineering, operations, and business teams
• Ability to operate strategically while remaining highly hands-on
• Strong facilitation, storytelling, and executive-level communication skills
• Experience incorporating generative AI and emerging technologies into the design process
• Experience mentoring other designers and helping elevate design craft

Portfolio Requirement

A portfolio is required to be considered for this position.

Your portfolio should demonstrate relevant service design expertise through case studies or examples of work such as service blueprints, journey and ecosystem maps, research, operating models, prototypes, or other complex service design engagements.

It may also take the form of a deck showcasing a selection of relevant case studies.