Job Details

Primary Skills

Position: Human-Centered Design (HCD) Specialist

Client: Maryland Health Benefit Exchange

Contract duration: Four years

Interview mode: Virtual

Location: 750 East Pratt Street, 6th Floor, Baltimore, Md 21202 (three days in the office, two days remote)

Rate: $65/hr

The client seeks one resource to serve as the Human-Centered Design (HCD) Strategist on the team. The HCD Strategist will work directly with policymakers, eligibility staff, IT professionals, program administrators, and beneficiaries to ensure that technology decisions, system improvements, and policy implementations align with user needs and operational realities. The role is both domain expert and cross-functional collaborator, leading user research, translating findings into service blueprints and prototypes, building organizational HCD capacity, and ensuring that Medicaid systems and processes become simpler, faster, and more reliable for the people who depend on them and the staff who serve them.

Duties/Responsibilities

• Serve as the Human-Centered Design (HCD) Strategist on MHBE's Medicaid outcome-focused pilot team, contributing senior domain expertise while collaborating across policy, operations, eligibility, and information technology functions.
• Lead human-centered design practice across the Medicaid eligibility, enrollment, and renewal lifecycle, analyzing current-state journeys, designing improvements, and supporting implementation alongside program and IT teams.
• Conduct qualitative user research with Medicaid beneficiaries and frontline eligibility staff to surface pain points, friction points, and unmet needs across the consumer and worker experiences.
• Translate research findings into service blueprints, journey maps, prototypes, and design recommendations that inform service design and technical improvements to MHBE platforms supporting Medicaid eligibility and enrollment. Ensure all design work prioritizes usability, accessibility (Section 508 and WCAG), inclusion, and equity for diverse populations, including non-English-speaking beneficiaries, beneficiaries with disabilities, and underserved communities.
• Apply, iterate on, and contribute to MHBE's design system standards to drive consistency and quality across the user experience. Facilitate stakeholder engagement across program staff, IT teams, executive leadership, and beneficiary communities, building effective working relationships that bridge organizational boundaries between policy, operations, and technology.
• Present research findings, design recommendations, and outcome metrics to senior leadership and to the broader Medicaid outcome team in clear, decision-ready formats. Ensure that proposed service and system changes meet federal and state policy and compliance requirements while delivering tangible, real-world improvements for beneficiaries and staff.
• Lead organizational human-centered design capacity-building by supporting state team adoption of cross-functional, iterative ways of working; contributing to knowledge-sharing and documentation for long-term sustainability; building state team capacity to apply HCD methods as part of ongoing operations rather than one-time engagements; and championing and demonstrating the value of HCD practice through guidance, mentorship, and visible delivery.
• Collaborate with engineers, product managers, business analysts, and contractor teams to ensure HCD insights translate into technical requirements, user stories, and acceptance criteria that engineering and PMO teams can execute against. Adhere to all security, change control, and MHBE Project Management Office (PMO) policies, processes, and methodologies.
• Note: The candidate must be flexible to work overtime as needed, including weekends, holidays, and off-hours.

Minimum Qualifications

• Seven (7) years of demonstrated professional experience as a Human-Centered Designer, Service Designer, UX Strategist, or equivalent role, with at least three (3) of those years delivering outcomes in complex, regulated, or large-scale environments such as government, healthcare, financial services, or other regulated industries.
• Demonstrated experience designing digital or technology products or solutions using human-centered design principles, working closely with engineers, product managers, and program staff to translate design into delivered systems.
• Demonstrated ability to work in cross-functional teams and to bridge gaps between policy, operations, and technology, including experience translating between technical and non-technical audiences. Demonstrated expertise in qualitative user research methods, including planning and conducting user interviews, contextual inquiry, usability testing, and synthesis of qualitative insights into actionable findings.
• Demonstrated expertise in service design methods, including service blueprinting, journey mapping, ecosystem mapping, and prototyping at varying levels of fidelity. Demonstrated experience designing for equity, accessibility, and diverse populations, including familiarity with Section 508 and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) standards and inclusive design practices.
• Familiarity with government service delivery contexts or large-scale public-facing systems, sufficient to operate effectively within compliance, procurement, and policy constraints.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to engage executives, frontline staff, technical teams, and beneficiary communities and to present complex findings and recommendations in clear, decision-ready formats.
• Proven ability to deliver outcomes in environments with complex processes, multiple stakeholders, or regulatory constraints.
• Demonstrated ability to work collaboratively with IT staff, project managers, and program/business stakeholders.
• Knowledge of Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), SNAP, TANF, or other federal/state government benefits programs, including familiarity with eligibility determination workflows, redetermination/renewal cycles, and ex parte renewal processes.
• Experience working in or with similar organizations such as state Medicaid agencies, health insurance marketplaces, ACA-related programs, federally qualified health centers, public health agencies, or mission-driven nonprofits serving comparable populations.
• Familiarity with federal and state policy, compliance, and procurement constraints relevant to public benefits administration, including CMS guidance, federal Medicaid regulations, and state procurement practices.
• Background in agile service delivery, discovery-to-delivery cycles, or modernization projects in a regulated or government context.
• Experience contributing to or maintaining an enterprise design system, including documentation, component libraries, and adoption support.
• Experience designing AI-assisted workflows, conversational interfaces, or self-service experiences in a regulated context, with attention to responsible AI principles and equity considerations.
• Experience leading or participating in plain language, readability, and content design initiatives for public-facing benefits communications.
• Experience training, mentoring, or coaching internal teams in human-centered design methods, including running design sprints, research playbacks, and capacity-building workshops.
• Ability to conduct user interviews, facilitate workshops, and synthesize qualitative insights directly from participants.
• Professional certifications relevant to the role, such as Nielsen Norman Group UX certifications, IDEO/LUMA Institute certifications, Certified Usability Analyst (CUA), or equivalent credentials.

Education: Bachelor's Degree from an accredited college or university with a major in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, Business, or other related scientific or technical discipline