Human Factors Lead Designer (R2608)
Shield AI
Design
Dallas County, TX, USA
Posted on Wednesday, May 22, 2024
In this role, reporting into the Director of Human Factors, you will help drive design strategy and own execution of key products and initiatives related to human-robot collaboration for Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR). You will lead a small team of product/user experience designers, human factors engineers, subject matter experts and cooperate with engineers, product managers, technical directors, researchers and other designers devoted to excellence, committed to collaboration, and focused on applying AI to protect service members, first responders, and civilians.
Ideal candidates will have prior experience designing and evaluating unmanned aerial vehicle ground control stations. They aspire to join an industry-changing team innovating human-machine teaming and autonomy for the defense space.
What You'll Do:
- Be responsible for and oversee all design efforts and all human-in-the-loop testing efforts to deliver a simple & powerful uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) ground control station (GCS)
- Design effective and elegant solutions to complex problems accommodating product requirements, user needs and required engineering effort
- Work closely with the chief engineer, systems engineers, and subject matter experts to derive and validate system requirements
- Lead development of mission and product context to focus and clarify your product design team’s effort through systems engineering artifacts (e.g. workflows, sequence diagrams, activity diagrams), early product/feature design (e.g. experience maps, journey maps, user stories, low-fidelity mockups), and/or human factors methods (e.g. cognitive task analysis, coactive design, joint activity design)
- Drive cross-functional alignment through stakeholder interviews and workshops
- Collaborate with UX designers on the team to guide work and provide feedback on the team’s low-fidelity sketches, high-fidelity visuals and dynamic interaction prototypes
- Provide insight into technical constraints of the software stack and product libraries that impact and constrain design scope
- Drive decision-making by articulating tradeoffs between design decisions
- Present user interface designs and prototypes to multiple audiences for feedback and/or handoff
- Uphold high product experience standards to ensure what customers use is built to designed specifications
- Stay organized, manage time effectively and prioritize work between multiple projects and deadlines
- Maintain awareness of compliance risks with customer human factors standards
- Oversee testing in order to approve software features and releases
- Oversee preparation and execution of human-in-the-loop test plans that use appropriate human factors and UX methods to collect quantitative & qualitative data in simulation tests and live flight tests
- Oversee development of system documentation and customer deliverables (e.g. test reports and user manuals)
- Travel to company, test, and customer locations for project work
Required Qualifications:
- 7+ years of experience as a distinguished individual contributor designing and evaluating human-machine interfaces / user interfaces / user experience
- Available online portfolio of past work demonstrating problem framing, problem solving and expert level visual design acumen
- Excellent design skills and understanding of design strategy
- Ability to work efficiently, demonstrating bias for action in a fast-paced, ambiguous environment
- Track record of working within cross-functional teams, synthesizing feedback and input from Product Management and Engineering
- Curiosity for autonomy, robotics and core machine learning concepts ranging from simple, binary supervised learning to state-of-the-art reinforcement learning
- Web and tablet app design experience and deep understanding of each platform’s constraints
- Experience presenting to senior leaders outside of design
- Understand full software development lifecycle
- Excellent written & verbal communication skills
- Eligibility to obtain & maintain a US security clearance
- BS/MS in Cognitive Systems Engineering, Human Computer Interaction, Human Factors, Industrial Engineering, Information Science, UI/UX Design or other relevant discipline
Preferred Qualifications:
- Prior experience with UAV ground control stations design and/or evaluation
- Understanding of Intelligence Surveillance Reconnaissance including the missions, payloads, and tactics
- Knowledge of human-machine teaming concepts
- US security clearance