Website State of Colorado
The AI Senior Service Designer will build and operationalize a structured process by which OIT helps agencies and ourselves answer two foundational questions before any AI build or procurement begins: Is AI the right solution for this problem? And if so, does the proposed solution actually work for the real people it is meant to serve?
The AI Senior Service Designer will own multiple streams of work including:
- Delivering structured discovery engagements for potential State-wide AI product deployments; user research and usability testing with expected constituents ranging from OIT, agencies, and real Coloradans, including residents from underserved communities; and service design documentation that translates constituent needs into clear product requirements before development or procurement begins.
- Filling in as product manager for select OIT-managed AI operations tools such as an automated LLM testing framework and monitoring tooling.
- Establishing an openly licensed practitioner guidance library: practical guides designed for agency product managers, technology directors, and program staff navigating AI decisions.
Essential Functions:
- Translate vision and strategy into sustainable initiatives that produce measurable improvements in the State of Colorado’s maturity in responsible AI deployments.
- Design the service experience for AI operations tools, ensuring infrastructure decisions are informed by constituent needs and usability testing.
- Collaborate with OIT leadership to mentor staff, embedding responsible AI best practices across OIT to build long-term capacity.
- Provide technical assistance to colleagues exploring whether, and if so, how, to leverage AI effectively within their functions.
This role is dynamic; as the AI landscape evolves, specific responsibilities may shift to meet the changing needs of the State.
This individual contributor position offers high autonomy and high accountability. This role sits within a purposefully "small but mighty" AI team with a unique goal: to diffuse AI competency across all of OIT so that, within 3-5 years, AI becomes "normal" technology and a standalone AI team is no longer needed. You will be a trusted thought partner to executive leadership, helping cultivate the culture, practices, and infrastructure to ensure AI delivers real value for Coloradans.
Minimum Qualifications, Substitutions, Conditions of Employment & Appeal Rights
A wide salary range is posted for this position and any job offer is based upon a salary analysis to comply with the Colorado Equal Pay for Equal Work Act. The salary analysis considers relevant experience, education, certifications, and state seniority as compared to others doing substantially similar work. While most salary offers are made within the posted range, occasionally an offer is made below or above the posted range based upon this salary analysis.
To better understand your qualifications and increase your opportunity to move forward in the selection process, please indicate in your work history for each job, the outcomes you have achieved that you believe are most relevant to this job.
This is a skills-based job announcement. The required minimum qualifications and/or education (if substituting for the proven experience, knowledge, and skills), are as follows:
Minimum Qualifications:
- Minimum of five (5) years of senior-level experience conducting user research, which includes working in or leading cross-functional teams using iterative, user-centered methods.
- Experience in product-oriented roles or close collaboration with product managers to ship technical products, with the ability to act as a product owner for internal AI tools when necessary.
- At least one year of experience working consistently with generative AI models.
Substitutions:
- Additional appropriate education will substitute for the required experience on a year-for-year basis, but cannot completely substitute for these qualifications.
- Training or Certification related to the work assigned to the position will be assigned credit towards substitution for experience and/or education, but cannot completely substitute for these qualifications.
- If the minimum qualifications include a degree requirement, additional appropriate paid or unpaid experience will substitute for the required education on a year-for-year basis.
Preferred Qualifications:
- Experience working with predictive AI.
- Experience in instructional design, with ability to design practical resources that build skills and knowledge sustainably.
- Familiarity with the unique constraints of public sector technology landscapes, including security/compliance baselines and vendor proposal assessment.
- Experience working across multidisciplinary teams—data science, engineering, policy, and operations—to ship complex technical products.
- Demonstrated ability to navigate organizational obstacles and ambiguous technical challenges to deliver functional, scalable results.
- Compelling communication, with ability to tailor messaging based on the audience, whether executives, engineers, or non-technical customers.