Deputy Director, Design Management, Product Development Office

About the role

GovTech, Singapore's lead agency for Smart Nation and public sector digital transformation, is looking for a Design Leader to help drive the evolution of public services. The role combines strategic vision, design leadership and organizational transformation skills, and suits someone who can build new digital products and services, catalyse change and operate at the intersection of technology, policy and operations.

Key responsibilities

• Lead design strategy and execution across an agency portfolio, covering service design, product design and design research
• Drive discovery work to uncover root causes, user needs and systemic barriers, and guide teams in reimagining end-to-end user experiences
• Partner with engineering leaders, product managers, policymakers and operations to align user needs with technical and business realities
• Build and mentor design teams across disciplines, and shape design-led frameworks for discovery, problem definition, solutioning and experimentation
• Build design capability within the agency and contribute to the wider public sector design practice
• Define and track measures of success to show design's impact on product development and service delivery

Required profile

• 10+ years designing and shipping digital solutions end-to-end, including GTM and impact
• 5+ years leading and growing design teams, with proven success in building design culture and capability
• Experience leading design across complex, multi-stakeholder environments; B2B, enterprise or platform experience is particularly relevant
• Ability to manage multiple concurrent projects and portfolios while maintaining quality
• Strong communicator and storyteller, entrepreneurial mindset focused on public good

Required skills

• Mastery of design disciplines: problem framing, research, service design, product design, prototyping and storytelling
• Fluency in APIs, system integrations, data-driven interfaces and permissions models to co-create with engineers
• Commitment to accessibility and inclusive design (WCAG)

Standout qualities include experience in both start-up and enterprise settings, launching platform-scale or low-code/no-code products, hiring and developing design talent, and a track record of real-world impact in civic tech, public sector or mission-driven work. Flexible work arrangements are offered subject to the role.