{"id":3477725,"url":"https://alion.io/job/air-forward-deployed-ux-researcher","title":"Forward Deployed UX Designer","company":{"id":22985,"name":"Air","domain":"air.ai","url":"https://alion.io/company/air-ai","size_band":"51-200","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Greenhouse","truth_index":{"grade":"A","score":95,"open_postings":34,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":226,"computed_at":"2026-11-04T06:34:25Z"}},"role":"Design","role_family":"Design","seniority":null,"employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"remote","remote_scope":"stated_countries","remote_scope_basis":"posting_text","remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"inferred","locations":["Arlington, United States","Pittsburgh, United States","San Francisco, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":["US"],"hiring_countries_total":1,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":92000,"max_usd":220000,"period":"year","method":"role_country_seniority_unknown","sample_n":2472},"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-10-29T16:14:53Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-11-03","last_verified_at":"2026-11-04T06:34:13Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":5,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":0,"flags":["company_stale"],"days_open":5},"description":"Company Description\nAir is the leader in Enterprise Readiness. Our mission is to establish readiness as a real-time condition that is continuously achieved. Today, a dangerous Readiness Gap exists between what the front line needs and what is delivered. Our AI-native platform, Air Enterprise Readiness, aligns development, production, delivery, and sustainment into one coordinated execution system for government agencies and industrial suppliers. By revealing true capacity, exposing real constraints, coordinating resources, and executing at the speed of operational demands, the front line gets what it needs to succeed.\nJob Description\nAs a Forward Deployed UX Designer, you will embed directly with our customers in the field to understand in detail their mission and how they evaluate continuous readiness. You will do that through a deep understanding of the end-user's jobs, problems, needs, and friction to achieve their goals. You turn this understanding into a product direction and work with other forward-deployed roles to design and develop innovative AI-native solutions to create a 10x better way of satisfying customer needs, instantly. The “job” would not be finished without integrating the work back to the core platform and completing the full cycle: Mission discovery → Prototype → Ship → Measure → Improve the Platform. This is a highly collaborative, fast-paced, customer-facing role where you own the discovery work end-to-end-from framing the question to delivering insights that direct what we deliver.\nTo succeed in this role, you are a curious and rigorous problem solver who values outcomes over process, exercises exceptional judgment when balancing competing priorities, and thrives in ambiguous, high-stakes, empowered environments.\nThis role is a full-time position located out of our office in Arlington, VA / Pittsburgh, PA / San Francisco, CA / Anywhere in the US.\nThis role may require up to 75% travel.\nScope of Responsibilities\nPartner with other forward-deployed roles (engineers, data scientists) to scope research, frame hypotheses, and translate findings into 0-to-1 product initiatives and prototypes.\nRun fast, pragmatic research: contextual inquiry, interviews, usability sessions, and concept tests against working prototypes.\nAssess, prioritize, and help correct the most important gaps in solutions under development based on what you hear from users.\nSynthesize quickly, share insights early, and iterate-learn fast, adjust, and go again.\nWork with core platform researchers, designers, and product managers to distill what’s customer-specific and what needs to become part of our core offering.\nSpend 50-75% of time at customer sites to diagnose and deeply understand user needs, workflows, and pain points.\nPlan and execute qualitative and mixed-methods research across the end-to-end product development lifecycle.\nBuild and maintain lightweight, reusable research practices-interview guides, synthesis frameworks, and insight repositories-that scale with the team.\nIterate quickly alongside engineering and design to progressively unlock customer value.\nQualifications\nU.S. Citizenship is required\nRequired Skills: \nBachelor’s degree in Human-Computer Interaction, Psychology, Design, a related field, or equivalent practical experience.\nWorked in a startup or entrepreneurial environment.\nExperience conducting applied UX or product research in a professional setting, including planning studies and synthesizing findings independently.\nStrong command of qualitative methods (interviews, contextual inquiry, usability testing) and comfort with mixed-methods work.\nAbility to work independently with minimal supervision and a strong desire to work in a challenging, fast-paced environment.\nExcellent communication skills-able to tell a clear, compelling story with research and influence cross-functional partners.\nExperience in AIND to generate prototypes and validate \nDesired Skills: \nA current U.S. security clearance, or the ability to obtain one with Air’s sponsorship.\nExperience researching complex, domain-heavy, or enterprise software, ideally in defense, government, or other regulated settings.\nExperience working within the boundaries of a federally accredited software environment.\nExperience in a customer-facing, consulting, or embedded role.\nWe firmly believe that past performance is the best indicator of future performance. If you thrive while building solutions to complex problems, are a self-starter, and are passionate about making an impact in global security, we’re eager to hear from you.\nAir is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability and protected veterans status or any other characteristic protected by law.","description_format":"text","description_chars":4864,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"bachelor","optional":false},"security_clearance":true,"languages":[]},"benefits":[],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United States","iso":"US","kind":"country"},{"name":"Virginia","iso":null,"kind":"city"},{"name":"Pennsylvania","iso":null,"kind":"city"},{"name":"California","iso":null,"kind":"city"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Predictive Analytics","National Security","Military Logistics","Supply Chain AI"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-29T19:21:30Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":90,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.903,"p_room":1,"age_days":5,"expected_fill_days":226,"reasons":["conf:0","velocity","win:early"],"computed_at":"2026-11-04T06:34:25Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/air-forward-deployed-ux-researcher","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/air-forward-deployed-ux-researcher.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-04T07:41:20Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":12004,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-05T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":22985},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=22985"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fair-forward-deployed-ux-researcher"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fair-forward-deployed-ux-researcher"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fair-forward-deployed-ux-researcher"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/air-forward-deployed-ux-researcher\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fair-forward-deployed-ux-researcher"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":3477725}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"air.ai","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":3477725},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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