Principal / Lead Designer, Design Practice

[What the role is]

GovTech is the lead agency driving Singapore's Smart Nation initiatives and public sector digital transformation. As the Centre of Excellence for Infocomm Technology and Smart Systems (ICT & SS), GovTech develops the Singapore Government's capabilities in Data Science & Artificial Intelligence, Application Development, Smart City Technology, Digital Infrastructure, and Cybersecurity.

At GovTech, we offer you a purposeful career to make lives better where we empower our people to master their craft through robust learning and development opportunities all year round.

Play a part in Singapore's vision to build a Smart Nation and embark on your meaningful journey to build tech for public good. Join us to advance our mission and shape your future with us today!

Learn more about GovTech at tech.gov.sg.

[What you will be working on]

About the Design Practice at GovTech

The Design Practice is on a mission to make lives better for citizens, businesses, and the public sector by activating human-centred design as a core organisational capability in GovTech. We believe that technology can be a force for public good by putting people at the heart of what we do.

We set high design standards, promote best practices, and support GovTech teams in applying human-centred design across the product development lifecycle. Our focus is not just on doing design well, but on making sure design actively shapes what gets built-and why.

To achieve this, we invest in our designers growth, equipping them with the tools, guidance, and community they need to thrive. We are building more hands-on support systems, whether by training and/or hiring design managers or by ensuring our team structures enable better oversight. We also cultivate a strong learning culture that encourages experimentation, collaboration, and continuous improvement.

We work to build deep partnerships with product managers, engineers, and senior leadership-ensuring that design is not an afterthought, but a strategic input from the start. Whether we're advising on complex policy-driven challenges or improving everyday digital touchpoints, we help teams understand complex ecosystems of users and their needs, so that we can design with impact.

By embedding design from the core of decision-making to development, we aim to deliver better public services-and to grow a practice that shapes not only what government builds, but how it builds it. If you're passionate about using design to drive systemic change, this is where your work will matter.

What you will do as a Principal Designer, Design Practice

You work to influence and lead design direction at the highest level in the organisation. You work with program leadership and cross-functionally with peers to help achieve the overall objectives of the Design Practice.

• Work with senior leaders, program leaders, agency leaders, and agency product owners on the complex problem of introducing or ensuring the continuous and valuable presence of design across product phases, from discovery through delivery, and into measurement and iteration. This might include everything from building new partnership models to interviewing designers to working with agencies to better understand policy requirements and organizational obstacles to prioritizing and implementing human-centered design.
• Contribute to a body of work on measuring design impact. This includes writing white papers, developing frameworks for measurement, working with teams and designers to test and implement methods and metrics, and building case studies that highlight how design impact metrics differ from traditional product metrics.
• Interface with peers in engineering and product practices as well as with teams on the ground to build and integrate best practices for collaboration in product development.
• Work with consulting and/or product teams as needed to help deconstruct and re-design system complexity into usable, inclusive and coherent experiences that align with policy, tech and operational realities.
• Lead work in setting standards for design processes, methodology and outputs, as well as to develop successful strategies for implementing these standards and processes to improve the quality of GovTech's design work. The outputs might include guides, white papers, videos, roadshows, etc.
• Evangelise and lead in systems thinking and design-led problem-solving in GovTech to expand the sphere of influence of design across GovTech and across the WoG.
• Coach and mentor designers.
• Actively investigate new tools, methods and processes to improve designer engagement and output.

[What we are looking for]

Required qualifications, skills and mindset:

• Diploma, bachelor's degree or higher in industrial design, interaction design, Human Computer Interaction (HCI), visual arts or similar.
• 12 - 15 years experience working in design across multiple industries, 6 of which in a position of influence or leadership.
• Strong empathy for people and a desire to advocate for their needs.
• Passion for making sense of complex, ambiguous challenges.
• Strong initiative and follow through for positive outcomes and long-term value.
• Strategic thinker (strong analytical and synthetic thinking, with ability to handle ambiguity) and a proven ability to drive strategic initiatives in your work.
• Proven ability to work seamlessly with senior leaders and ability to influence through trust, clarity, and collaboration.
• Experience working in cross-functional delivery teams with a track record of leading cross-functional discovery and shaping product direction based on insight and iteration.
• Strong evidence of partnership with fellow functional leaders and/or stakeholders in driving products towards common goals.
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to present findings clearly and persuasively.
• Initiative to help designers learn, adapt and grow in the UX field. Expert in design methodology and a keen eye for detail.
• Deep understanding of methods to elicit insights from users.
• Deep understanding of how people engage with (digital) systems.

GovTech is the lead agency driving Singapore's Smart Nation initiatives and public sector digital transformation. As the Centre of Excellence for Infocomm Technology and Smart Systems (ICT & SS), GovTech develops the Singapore Government's capabilities in Data Science & Artificial Intelligence, Application Development, Smart City Technology, Digital Infrastructure, and Cybersecurity.

At GovTech, we offer you a purposeful career to make lives better where we empower our people to master their craft through robust learning and development opportunities all year round.

Play a part in Singapore's vision to build a Smart Nation and embark on your meaningful journey to build tech for public good. Join us to advance our mission and shape your future with us today!

Learn more about GovTech at tech.gov.sg.