Product Designer

SteerBridge seeks a Product Designer to join our Experience Design team supporting our Aviation Tech team and the continued development and expansion of AIRES our aviation readiness capability.

In this role you will create high-fidelity UI prototypes in Figma help maintain and extend our design system and translate research findings operational workflows and technical requirements into clear production-ready product experiences.

You will work as part of a small product design team collaborating closely with a senior product designer who will provide day-to-day direction design critique and mentorship. You will also work with UX researchers engineers data teams product stakeholders and aviation subject-matter experts.

Ideal candidates are strong UI craftspeople who understand how design systems work in practice are comfortable designing complex data-rich interfaces are eager to learn and thrive on clear direction and regular feedback. Over time this role is expected to grow from executing defined design work to taking greater ownership of product workflows and features.

Design Patterns and Architectural Context

In data and software engineering a design pattern is a battle-tested blueprint for solving a recurring problem. It is not a specific piece of code but a standardized mental model that allows teams to skip the trial-and-error phase of architecture.

SteerBridge applies proven patterns such as Medallion Architecture to structure validate and operationalize data within mission-critical aviation analytics platforms.

Product designers work within this architectural context to translate complex data workflows and system behavior into clear usable and decision-ready experiences for operators working in high-consequence environments.

Primary Mission Area

The platform supports aviation readiness and sustainment operations including:

• Fleet readiness monitoring
• Maintenance planning
• Supply chain coordination
• Logistics forecasting
• Operational planning support

Primary users include aviation maintainers logisticians planners and senior decision-makers operating under time pressure and incomplete information.

The work involves complex data-rich interfaces that help users understand aircraft status maintenance requirements supply constraints readiness risk and potential courses of action.

Core Responsibilities

• Design and build high-fidelity prototypes in Figma translating wireframes user flows research findings and requirements into polished production-ready interfaces.
• Design complex data-driven workflows and interfaces supporting aviation readiness maintenance logistics and operational planning.
• Turn UX research findings subject-matter expert input operational workflows and technical requirements into product concepts and production-ready designs.
• Support and help maintain the teams design system using existing components and tokens correctly and flagging or proposing new patterns as needs arise.
• Receive design direction and assigned work from the senior product designer execute against established priorities and track progress through Jira.
• Manage several concurrent design tasks and tickets in a fast-paced environment prioritizing and estimating work across sprints.
• Annotate and document handoff specifications including states edge cases interaction details and expected behaviors so engineers can build without guesswork.
• Perform design QA on shipped features verifying that implementation matches Figma specifications states and interaction details.
• Collaborate with product stakeholders engineers UX researchers data teams and aviation subject-matter experts to ensure designs are feasible consistent and aligned to operational requirements.
• Participate actively in design reviews and critique sessions incorporating feedback into iterations.
• Apply consistent visual and interaction design standards across screens workflows and features.
• Communicate design rationale clearly to designers engineers and stakeholders.
• Incorporate feedback and direction between check-ins and proactively escalate blockers.

Research-Informed Product Design

• Partner with UX researchers to translate research findings and validated operational workflows into product designs.
• Turn research findings user flows and operational requirements into wireframes interaction models and high-fidelity prototypes.
• Work with aviation subject-matter experts to understand operational context and clarify design requirements.
• Support interaction design and information architecture decisions for complex workflows.
• Iterate on designs based on usability testing stakeholder feedback technical constraints and changing operational requirements.
• Help visualize concepts early so product and engineering teams can evaluate potential solutions before development.

• Must be a U.S. Citizen.
• Bachelors degree in Design Human-Computer Interaction or a related field or equivalent relevant work experience.
• An active Secret security clearance or the ability to obtain one is required.
• 24 years of professional experience in UI or product design preferred. Exceptional early-career candidates with strong portfolios will also be considered.
• A portfolio demonstrating strong UI craft design system work and the ability to organize complex information and design multi-step user workflows.
• Ability to present and walk through a previously designed user flow as part of the interview process including explaining design decisions constraints and tradeoffs.
• Strong proficiency in Figma including components variants auto layout and interactive prototyping.
• Solid understanding of design systems including how components tokens and patterns fit together and should be used and extended.
• Strong foundational UI skills including typography visual hierarchy layout spacing and color.
• Experience turning wireframes workflows or requirements into high-fidelity developer-ready prototypes.
• Working knowledge of Section 508 compliance and WCAG accessibility standards as applied to UI design.
• Comfort working in Jira or a similar ticketing or Agile tool to manage and complete assigned work.
• Strong communication skills and openness to direction critique and mentorship.

• Experience designing data-rich applications dashboards enterprise software decision-support tools or other complex interfaces.
• Experience presenting complex data system states dependencies alerts operational status or similar information in a clear and usable way.
• Working knowledge of foundational UX principles including usability heuristics information architecture and interaction design sufficient to ask informed questions about user flows and flag usability concerns.
• Working knowledge of HTML/CSS sufficient to understand implementation feasibility and communicate effectively with engineers.
• Experience contributing to or helping maintain a design system component library.
• Experience working within Agile/Scrum ceremonies including sprint planning backlog refinement and retrospectives.
• Prior experience supporting DoD federal aviation logistics fleet management or other government clients.
• Basic motion or interaction design skills.
• Experience using AI-assisted design prototyping or development tools such as Claude ChatGPT/Codex or comparable platforms.
• Ability to use rapid prototyping techniques to demonstrate interactions and product concepts beyond static screens.

The Teams Behind the Technology

Aviation analytics platforms do not succeed on architecture alone. They succeed because multidisciplinary teams design build secure and refine them with operational intent.

SteerBridges aviation analytics capabilities are built by an integrated technology organization that includes:

• Software developers
• Data architects
• Data scientists
• Product and UI/UX designers
• UX researchers
• Aviation subject-matter experts

Product designers work alongside UX researchers engineers data architects data scientists and aviation subject-matter experts to turn complex operational requirements and data into usable product experiences.

This collaboration is especially important in environments where time pressure operational risk and accountability matter.

Tools and Artifacts

• Figma
• Jira
• AI-assisted design prototyping and development tools such as Claude ChatGPT/Codex or comparable platforms
• Microsoft Office and collaboration tools

What Success Looks Like

• Designs accurately reflect validated user workflows and operational requirements.
• Complex aviation data is presented in ways users can quickly understand and act on.
• Figma prototypes are detailed enough for engineers to implement with minimal ambiguity.
• New features consistently use and strengthen the AIRES design system.
• Design QA identifies implementation issues before they negatively affect the user experience.
• Product decisions are informed by user research technical constraints aviation domain expertise and operational needs.
• The designer communicates effectively across design engineering research and product teams.
• The designer grows from executing defined work to owning increasingly complex workflows and product features.
• Products are intuitive defensible and trusted by the people who rely on them.