Service Design Lead

Service Design LeadLocation: New York, NYWe 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.

While professional experience and qualifications are key for this role, make sure to check you have the preferable soft skills before applying if required.
What We’re Looking ForStrategic 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 BackgroundTypically 10–12 years of relevant experienceDeep expertise in service design, systems thinking, research, and complex journey/service mappingPrevious experience within a regulated environment such as financial services, healthcare, or insuranceExperience working across design, product, engineering, operations, and business teamsAbility to operate strategically while remaining highly hands-onStrong facilitation, storytelling, and executive-level communication skillsExperience incorporating generative AI and emerging technologies into the design processExperience mentoring other designers and helping elevate design craft
Portfolio RequirementA 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. xzbcwsv It may also take the form of a deck showcasing a selection of relevant case studies.