{"id":2053258,"url":"https://alion.io/job/link-senior-design-strategist-3","title":"Senior Design Strategist","company":{"id":678894,"name":"LINK","domain":"link.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/link-7","size_band":"51-200","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Greenhouse","truth_index":null},"role":"Sales","role_family":"Sales","seniority":"senior","employment_type":null,"work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["San Diego, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":112000,"max":151000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":151000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":10,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-10-07T20:23:00Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-07","last_verified_at":"2026-10-23T05:04:40Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":15,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":15},"description":"Who We Are: LINK is a fast-growing Woman Owned Small Business (WOSB) that leverages human-centered design to support strategy, innovation, communication, change, and branding within the federal government and adjacent industry partners. At LINK, we partner with engineers, futurists, and thought leaders to untangle complexity, discover opportunity, and communicate clearly with visual stories. \nLet us be your partners in change.\nLocation: We are actively hiring in the San Diego area.\nAbout the Opportunity\nLINK is actively seeking a Senior Design Strategist to join our dynamic team, where we leverage strong partnerships and a robust portfolio of clients across diverse industries. You will be responsible for leading and executing innovative design strategies, collaborating with both internal teams and executive-level clients, and driving impactful visual storytelling to meet client objectives.\nThis is an exciting opportunity for an experienced professional to bring a combination of creative and strategic expertise to elevate LINK’s business growth and deliver high-quality, human-centered design solutions. You will work closely with clients to understand their challenges, develop compelling narratives, and implement design strategies that align with their mission, goals, and brand identity. Ideal candidates will have a proven track record of designing impactful visual experiences, utilizing data-driven insights, and collaborating cross-functionally to deliver exceptional client results.\nQualifications\nBachelor’s degree in Design, Communication, Sociology, Psychology, Human-Centered Design, or a related field. \n10+ years of experience in design strategy, service design, user experience, research, consulting, communications, or a related field. \nAbility to obtain and maintain a security clearance. \nStrong expertise in human-centered design, design thinking, systems thinking, facilitation, and strategic storytelling. \nWell-versed in a variety of design strategy disciplines and able to select the appropriate approach for a given challenge. \nExperience designing and facilitating workshops, stakeholder engagements, and collaborative working sessions that drive alignment and informed decision-making.\nDemonstrated ability to lead complex research efforts and translate findings into actionable insights, strategic recommendations, and organizational outcomes. \nStrong written and verbal communication skills and the ability to collaborate effectively with clients and cross-functional teams. \nDemonstrated ability to navigate ambiguity and guide stakeholders through complex challenges and decision-making processes. \nDemonstrated ability to balance multiple priorities and deadlines while maintaining high standards of quality and client service. \nCapable of mentoring and coaching others. \nApproaches work with optimism, openness to new ideas, and a collaborative mindset.\nPortfolio that demonstrates both design execution and strategic decision-making\nResponsibilities\nClient Partnership & Design Strategy Leadership\nServes as a trusted advisor to clients by framing complex challenges, identifying opportunities, and applying human-centered design approaches to inform strategic decision-making.\nPartners directly with client stakeholders to understand organizational priorities, user needs, operational constraints, and desired outcomes.\nLeads the development of design strategy approaches that align stakeholder needs, business objectives, and mission requirements.\nGuides cross-functional teams through ambiguity, helping stakeholders build alignment and make informed decisions.\nIdentifies opportunities to create tangible business value and support long-term client success.\nResearch, Insight Development & Systems Thinking\nLeads mixed-method research efforts, including stakeholder interviews, contextual inquiry, observations, journey mapping, ecosystem analysis, and systems mapping activities.\nSynthesizes qualitative and quantitative findings into actionable insights, opportunity areas, strategic recommendations, and design directions.\nApplies systems thinking to identify patterns, dependencies, root causes, and opportunities across complex organizational environments.\nTranslates technical, operational, and policy-focused challenges into human-centered insights and strategic considerations.\nGuides research activities that inform organizational transformation, service design, experience design, and strategic planning efforts.\nStrategic Visualization & Storytelling\nDevelops compelling visual frameworks, journey maps, service blueprints, ecosystem maps, decision-support tools, and strategic narratives that communicate complex information clearly.\nShapes storytelling approaches that help stakeholders understand challenges, opportunities, tradeoffs, and future-state possibilities.\nCollaborates with information designers and strategists to develop executive-level deliverables that support alignment and decision-making.\nEstablishes quality standards for design strategy deliverables and provides guidance that improves consistency across engagements.\nEnsures visual outputs effectively communicate research findings, strategic recommendations, and organizational priorities.\nWorkshop Facilitation & Stakeholder Alignment\nDesigns and facilitates workshops, design sprints, stakeholder engagements, and co-creation activities that advance strategic objectives and drive organizational alignment.\nDevelops facilitation approaches, agendas, exercises, and collaborative experiences that enable productive dialogue and structured problem-solving.\nSynthesizes workshop outputs into actionable findings, recommendations, and implementation considerations.\nHelps stakeholders navigate competing priorities, organizational complexity, and change initiatives through structured facilitation and engagement.\nGuides teams in applying human-centered design methods throughout project lifecycles.\nTeam Development & Leadership\nMentors teammates through coaching, knowledge sharing, and constructive feedback.\nModels LINK values and contributes to a collaborative, inclusive, and high-performing team culture.\nShares tools, methods, frameworks, and lessons learned that improve the quality and consistency of work across engagements.\nSupports development of emerging practitioners by providing guidance on research, facilitation, synthesis, and visual storytelling approaches.\nContributes to the continued evolution of LINK’s design strategy practice through innovation, experimentation, and continuous learning.\nWork Schedule\nOn-site with the client 2-3 days per week.\nFull time, 40 hours per week\nSome travel required to attend relevant events and conferences, and participate in LINK team events\nSalary: LINK is committed to offering competitive compensation. While the salary range for this position is $112,000 - $151,000, your final offer may be adjusted based on factors such as experience and location.\nBenefits:\n$100 monthly internet/cell phone stipend\n$150 monthly commuter stipend for eligible participants\nLINK sponsored healthcare benefits including medical, dental, vision\nCompany-paid Short Term Disability Insurance\n401K with employer contribution of up to 4%\n11 Federal Holidays per year \n15 days of Paid Time Off (PTO) per year \nPaid Holiday Time Off (Christmas Eve through the New Year) \nAnnual bonus plan participation\nAnnual profit sharing participation\n$2,000 Learning and Development program reimbursement\nTechnology package that includes a LINK-owned MacBook Pro, monitor, mouse and keyboard\nLINK is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to sex, race, color, religion, national origin, disability, protected Veteran status, age, or any other characteristic protected by applicable state, local, and federal law.\nIf you are unable to complete this application due to a disability, contact Human Resources to ask for an accommodation or an alternative application process.","description_format":"text","description_chars":8027,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":10,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"bachelor","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["401k plan","Apple Macbook","Continuous learning"],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Branding","Management Consulting"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-07T22:30:33Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":75,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.831,"p_room":0.9,"age_days":15,"expected_fill_days":35,"reasons":["conf:0","win:mid"],"computed_at":"2026-10-23T05:54:15Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":151000,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/link-senior-design-strategist-3","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/link-senior-design-strategist-3.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-23T08:11:32Z","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":13067,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-24T00:00:00Z"}},"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":678894},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=678894"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Flink-senior-design-strategist-3"},{"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%2Flink-senior-design-strategist-3"},{"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%2Flink-senior-design-strategist-3"},{"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/link-senior-design-strategist-3\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Flink-senior-design-strategist-3"}]}