Forward Deployed Product Designer

The shape of it

In the posting’s own words

The mission of Scale's Public Sector team is to bring AI-powered decision support directly to government and defense customers - deploying trusted, mission-critical tools in the field, not just building internal software. This role will own the end-to-end design of one of our core mission workflows: planning (synthesizing information for senior decision-makers), operations (surfacing high-signal alerts from complex data streams), or analytical (research and reporting tools) - partnering with product from day one to shape ambiguous, high-stakes problems into deployable customer-facing experiences.

What it asks for · 7

• 10–15 years of experience across a range of design settings and problem types.
• Experience owning end-to-end B2B or enterprise product experiences at a senior/staff level.
• Comfortable working with high ambiguity and evolving requirements, typical of early-stage government/enterprise engagements.
• Experience designing complex workflow UI, dashboards, or data-heavy/mapping interfaces.
• Strong client-facing presence - confident presenting to and winning over senior stakeholders in person.
• Working understanding of front-end development and how to hand off clean, implementable designs; comfort collaborating directly with engineers on code.
• Willingness to travel regularly to customer sites.

What the job covers

• Own end-to-end design - from ambiguous, undefined requirements through wireframes, high-fidelity mockups, and interactive prototypes - for a customer-facing government/defense product experience.
• Partner directly with Product as a peer from the earliest stages of a project, not just at handoff.
• Work forward-deployed, on-site with customers, building direct relationships and confidently socializing design decisions with stakeholders.
• Design for complex, data-dense workflows: dashboards, mapping interfaces, alerting systems, and analytical reporting tools.
• Work directly in code alongside engineers, going beyond static mockups to help build and refine the shipped experience.
• Contribute design assets and interaction patterns back to the broader platform, not just the account or project you're staffed on.
• Help calibrate and grow the design team by participating in portfolio reviews and interviews as we scale this function.
• Navigate high ambiguity - customer requirements are often not clean or fully defined, and you'll need to help define them.

Tools and skills named

Words the posting leans on

• design12×
• experience9×
• product7×
• directly6×
• customers5×
• stakeholders4×
• tools4×
• workflow4×
• building3×
• complex3×
• requirements3×
• ambiguity2×
• ambiguous2×
• analytical2×
• clean2×
• client-facing2×

Counted from the posting after the mission statement and the legal notices are set aside. The ones near the top are the ones a screener is looking for.

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