Product Designer (1099 Contract) | Active Secret Clearance Required

The role

A mid-level Product Designer will own end-to-end design for product areas. You will work with engineers, product, and subject-matter experts to create interfaces for complex operational problems.

What you will do

• Own the design of features from discovery through shipped implementation
• Design for complexity including data-dense tables, map and timeline views, and simulation outputs
• Contribute to and extend the design system in Figma and partner with engineering on React/TypeScript implementation
• Run lightweight discovery with SMEs and end users within government environments
• Design authentication flows, role-based access control, permissions, and audit-friendly interactions
• Meet WCAG 2.1 AA and Section 508 accessibility requirements
• Give and receive critique and present work to customers and program stakeholders

Required qualifications

• 4–5 years of product design experience shipping software
• Portfolio that demonstrates process and decision-making
• Strong proficiency in Figma including components, variants, auto-layout, and variables
• Hands-on experience building and maintaining a design system
• Experience designing complex, information-dense applications
• Working knowledge of front-end concepts including component structure, state, responsive behavior, and design tokens
• Experience using discovery, user research, or competitive analysis
• Strong cross-functional collaboration and stakeholder management skills
• Ability to work independently through standard design challenges
• Strong storytelling, presentation, written, and asynchronous communication skills
• Active Secret clearance
• U.S. citizenship

Nice to have

• A clearance above Secret (Top Secret or TS/SCI)
• Prior work on defense, government, or other regulated or compliance-heavy products
• Experience contributing code to a design system or front-end codebase (React, TypeScript, CSS)
• Familiarity with map-based interfaces, scheduling and timeline UI, or simulation and modeling tools
• Experience designing for classified or air-gapped environments, or working within FedRAMP and IL5 constraints

About the company

DEFCON AI is an insights company that leverages artificial intelligence, mathematical optimization, data analytics, and software engineering for resilient optimization of complex systems.