Principal / Staff UX Designer

Speridian Technologies is recruiting for a Principal / Staff UX Designer for our State of California Client, the Department of Healthcare Services, Behavioral Health. This person will be part of a long-term, fully budgeted, state-of-the-art, extremely vast technical modernization project. 
This is a remote role; however, there may be meetings in the Sacramento area several times a year.  Candidates are expected to work business hours, Monday-Friday, Pacific Time Zone.
Join DHCS’s Behavioral Health Transformation: Where Purpose Meets Innovation
Location: Remote
Department: Department of Healthcare Services (DHCS), Behavioral Health Transformation (BHT)
Commitment: Full-Time Consultant (W2 employee of Speridian or 1099/IC for Speridian) 
Why DHCS?
At DHCS we are leading a transformative journey in Behavioral Health, reshaping systems and services to ensure better outcomes for communities across California. Our Behavioral Health transformation initiative is more than a project—it’s a movement to make California a leader in accessible, high-quality health services. We’re setting the stage for a new era of government services built on agile methodologies, cutting-edge technology, continuous improvement, and a relentless commitment to serving the public good.
At DHCS, we’re looking for innovators who are passionate about purposeful work and excited by the opportunity to drive lasting change through innovative solutions.
Our core values are what make us successful and define the impact we have on the DHCS program and California’s citizens. 

• Partnership:  Respect Other, Practice Empathy, Earn Trust
• Ownership:   Take Accountability, Show Reliability, Act with Integrity
• Grit:  Bring Passion, Exhibit Perseverance, Demonstrate Resilience
• Value:  Drive Outcomes, Maximize Impact, Keep Improving

Role Description:  Staff UX Designers create end-to-end design experiences (from planning to execution) for complex product areas, ensuring alignment with business goals and user needs. They drive design excellence across complex product areas. They translate product strategy and user research needs into innovative and practical design solutions. This role is responsible for creating thoughtful, user-centered experiences that align with business objectives and technical constraints.
Responsibilities:

• Deliver high-quality design artifacts—user flows, wireframes, prototypes, and final UI
• Champion usability, accessibility (WCAG standards), and design consistency
• Support design system maintenance and contribute towards scaling and evangelizing the design system across the organization
• Partner with engineering to implement scalable and maintainable design solutions
• Contribute to the product roadmap with a design lens, advocating for user-centered approaches
• Collaborate with Product Managers, Product Owners, Engineers, Researchers, and Content Designers to iterate and ship high-quality experiences
• Participate in discovery sessions, sprint planning, critiques, and design reviews
• Communicate design rationale clearly to stakeholders at all levels
• Advocate for design best practices and contribute to team-wide standards, templates, and documentation

Qualifications:

• 5+ years of experience in UX or Product Design with a strong portfolio demonstrating end-to-end design work
• Proven experience designing for complex or enterprise-level digital products
• Bachelor's or Master’s degree in Design, HCI, or a related field (or equivalent practical experience)
• Experience working in agile, cross-functional product teams

Key Skills:

• Expert in tools like Figma, Sketch, Adobe XD, or equivalent
• Strong understanding of interaction design, visual hierarchy, layout, and responsive design principles
• Experience with prototyping tools
• Ability to think holistically and design scalable systems across platforms
• Strong problem-solving skills with a user-first mindset
• Comfortable navigating ambiguity and making data-informed decisions
• Excellent storytelling, presentation, and stakeholder management skills
• Strong collaboration with engineering to ensure feasible, high-quality implementation
• Proactive communicator who can drive alignment and influence decisions across functions

Assessment required:

• Challenge/take home exercise to be completed and passed

Speridian is an equal opportunity employer