Reasonable Accommodations
Fearless complies with federal and state disability laws and makes reasonable accommodations for applicants and candidates with disabilities. If reasonable accommodation is needed to participate in the job application or interview process, please email ** Redacted ** to submit a formal request to Human Resources.
Compensation
Our Compensation System is designed to reward remarkable work, grow your impact and support the whole “you” over the course of your career.
We believe in paying people fairly, so we’ve established a compensation model aimed to ensure everyone at Fearless — regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, disability, religion, age, nationality, or negotiation skills — is given equal pay for equal work.
Salary
- Minimum Salary: $91,554
- Salary Midpoint: $119,020
- Maximum Salary: $146,486
- Hiring Range: $140,000 – $150,000
Location
- Hybrid opportunity in Columbia, MD. Potential for up to 2 days telework.
Employment Type
Full-time
What you’ll be doing
We’re looking to change the world by building software with a soul, and we want your help.
The User Researcher III collaborates with cross-functional teams and stakeholders to evaluate current and upcoming user research needs. They work to improve the definition of products and services which can then be used to determine user, customer, and organizational requirements. They set the direction of delivery and operationalize research efforts to provide actionable and meaningful data-driven insights representing actors, tools, and processes. They are experienced practitioners who are able to plan and facilitate user research activities for larger teams and more complex services.
We need your User Research skills! What other skills will help you succeed at Fearless? Glad you asked! We’re excited about candidates who can accomplish the following:
Responsibilities and Contributions
Organizational and Leadership Role
- Builds scalable user research solutions for multiple cross-functional teams, as well as Business Development strategies for new opportunities.
- Cultivates a community of growth and development through coaching and mentoring others to develop their professional skills.
- Grows our design community and strategies, leads discussion of design practices and standards, and contributes to practice area communities and activities.
Functional Role
Collaboration & Communication
- Advises designers, researchers, and other team members on usability trends, practices, and the choice and application of research methods to assure best practice.
- Coaches and mentors inexperienced teams to adopt user-centered practices and embed them into an agile workflow.
- Mentors, stewards, and directs other Designers and Researchers to improve the quality of their work.
- Ensures cross-disciplinary involvement in carrying out research plans by assigning and managing progress toward research and participant management tasks, working with the Scrum Master to remove any blockers.
- Advises the team and customer on how to adopt a user-centered, evidence-based approach to defining requirements and implementing solutions.
- Builds, maintains, and promotes a research repository for teammates that enable teams to continually assure, improve, and innovate their practices to generate clear and valuable findings.
- Works with Visual Designers to help translate insights into visual artifacts and products.
Research & Analysis
- Analyzes and synthesizes qualitative and quantitative data to generate strategic and tactical insights along with actionable recommendations that drive product design, service improvements, and innovations that improve user experience.
- Develops and executes well-crafted research plans with clear research objectives.
- Strongly adheres to research ethics and privacy guidelines for specific client needs, clarifying privacy restrictions with the client and teammates and triaging efficiently in the event of a privacy breach.
- Sets the direction of delivery and the collection of user experience metrics in the course of collaboration with Designers, Engineers, Product Managers, and Product Owners.
- Defines and champions research processes and tools that enable teammates to better incorporate and improve research in their work.
- Advocates for inclusive practices and helps teams design and deliver accessible products and services that work for all users.
- Plans and facilitates participatory and iterative design activities, such as observational studies, customer interviews, usability testing, and other forms of requirements discovery.
Essential Skills, Experience, or Competencies
Must-Have Skills
- 14 years of experience with Bachelor’s in Computer Science (or related field) or 19 years without the degree.
- Obtain an Active TS/SCI Full Scope Poly Clearance.
- Experience in conducting of the usability and software engineering cycle phases.
- Experience creating user interface design specifications through researching and documenting user requirements including profiles, frequent tasks, workflows, and user scenarios while working closely with application developers.
- Experience conducting usability testing proficiency in one or more design tools such as Adobe Creative Cloud, XD and PenPot.
- Demonstrated expertise in the sustainability and consequences of design decisions.
- Demonstrated ability to make decisions characterized by managed levels of risk and complexity.
- Demonstrated expertise in using strong influencing and communication skills to identify solutions that meet user and business needs.
- Demonstrated expertise in managing stakeholder relationships and expectations.
- Industry expertise in recruiting public and Government-targeted end-users for specific research.
- Demonstrated expertise in implementing a wide variety of research and synthesis methods applied across complex products and services.
- Demonstrated expertise in understanding behavioral analysis and statistical concept studies.
- Demonstrated mastery of practice in communicating and creating presentations of visually and verbally engaging content.
- Knowledge of the social and technological context for Government services.
- Excellent attention to detail and strong organizational and time management abilities.
- Advanced knowledge of technologies used to build and operate Government services.
- Experience with DesignOps and ResearchOps, operationalizing processes such as participant recruitment and screening, transcription, and knowledge management.
- Ability to operate and manage work, strategically reason, build relationships, and influence others.
Highly Desired Skills and Experience
- Experience with remote testing tools.
- Broad knowledge of service design, visual design, interaction design, content design and/or user research.
- Experience working with Government customers.
- Advanced understanding of agile processes and ability to advise colleagues on how and why agile methods are used and be able to provide a clear, open, and transparent framework in which teams can deliver.
- Develops format-free structured content models so that content can be written in a consistent way to support multi-channel publishing (mobile, web, print).
- Supports development of content deliverables including copywriting, editing, and design of visual storytelling elements.
- Owns and champions the team’s content strategy practices and standards, through assessing and improving the quality, impact, and strategic planning of outcomes and outputs.
- Structures and implements digital content publishing platforms, such as CMSs and email marketing software.
- Creates scalable solutions to develop governance, processes, and workflows based on delivering strategy and policy intent.
- Defines strategies and policies, and provides guidance to others working in the strategic context as well as evaluate current strategies to ensure business requirements are being met and exceeded where possible.
So, what’s next?
Over the years, we’ve honed our interview process to help ensure that every team member we hire is the right fit for us and that we’re the right fit for them. If we think you’re a good fit, we’ll get in touch and start scheduling your interviews! Depending on the role’s/project’s requirements, the interview process may include some differences. At the minimum
- Introductory Interview: This is where you and your recruiter will build rapport, explore your career and educational background, discuss salary expectations, role requirements, and set expectations for the interview process, specific to the position of interest.
- Technical Interview (Skills Fit): This is where we get into the nitty gritty of the project. During the Technical Interview, you’ll be interviewed by the technical team to dig more into your background and technical capabilities.
- Business Interview: At this point, you’ve made it to the final frontier! The Business Interview is when you’ll meet with Fearless leadership to dot the i’s, cross the t’s, and determine whether or not we’ll be moving forward with the hiring process.
About Fearless Digital
Fearless Digital builds software with a soul. As a division inside Fearless, we’re part of its digital services integrator model to unlock the power of organizations, people and tech. Our division designs, engineers, and delivers digital solutions to solve problems and drive impact. Using iterative development cycles, we minimize risk for our customers and efficiently deliver intuitive and responsive technology. In this way, we help set the stage for tech to work better for people. That’s not our only goal, though. We also strive to create a purple culture that makes our team members excited to come to work every day. We take a holistic approach to our people’s well-being, and our culture and benefits are designed to support our people in working the way they like best. We encourage our people to pursue their passions, both in and out of the office. With flexible schedules, continuing education support, and a family-friendly work environment, we’ve created a culture that allows our team to thrive professionally and personally.
Fearless believes in equal opportunity employment. We won’t discriminate against any employee or applicant on the basis of race, gender, nationality, age, religion, disability, military status, or sexual orientation. As a company and as individuals, we’re committed to providing an inclusive and welcoming environment for our team, our family members, our clients, our subcontractors, and our vendors.
Fearless Digital Benefits
Benefits Eligibility:
- Full-time team members are eligible for benefits upon beginning employment at Fearless
- Part-time team members are only eligible for 8.75 days of safe & sick leave
- Interns and 1099 team members are not eligible for Fearless benefits
Our people make us who we are. We believe that every member of the Fearless team has something to share, and we value the unique viewpoint you’ll bring to our community. But we value your community, too, so we offer fulfilling work that stays in balance with the rest of life. Because everyone has different needs, desires, and goals, our benefits offer the choices and flexibility that our team members need to live well and succeed. Here are a few highlights of our benefits package, for full-time team members, exclusively:
- Life-friendly schedules
- Family-friendly workplace
- We cover 100% of your premium for our medical HSA plan + the deductible portion of HSA contributions, 80% of your premium for our HMO or PPO plans, and offer competitive dependent coverage. We cover 100% of dental and vision premiums for you and your dependents and offer medical and dependent care FSA options. We also offer life insurance, short- and long-term disability coverage, and legal planning and support insurance.
- Tech, education / training, and wellness allowances
- Safe Harbor 401(k) plan with employer contributions (current match = 4%) and immediate vesting
- Referral bonus: Bring your friends! If someone you refer is hired, you’ll get a bonus of $6–12k!
- Total Pet Plan
- Employee Assistance Program
- Up 12 weeks of FMLA paid at 100%
- PTO is provided to team members as a lump sum allowance, not an accrual. PTO is prorated based on your start date (see table below) on a quarterly basis (with tenure-based increases), 8.75 days of sick leave, 11 federal holidays, their birthday (8 hours), up to 15 days for jury duty, and up to 3 days (24 hours) of bereavement leave per eligible instance.
| Start Date | PTO Allocation | Allocation Timing |
| Jan 1 – March 31 | 100% | January |
| April 1 – June 30 | 75% | April |
| July 1 – Sept 30 | 50% | July |
| Oct 1 – Dec 31 | 25% | October |