UX Strategist, Cyber Mission Systems & Analyst Experience

This is a pipeline position with an anticipated award in early Fall 2026.

Location: Columbia, MD

Telework: TBD, subject to manager approval and tasking

Clearance Required: TS/SCI with Polygraph

Salary Range: $165,000 to $185,000

At Shadow Strategies, you will join a culture defined by innovation, purpose, and meaningful impact. We seek senior UX practitioners who uncover operator needs, establish a clear experience strategy, and shape complex systems around real mission outcomes. If you are inspired by complexity, motivated by clarity, and committed to excellence, we invite you to become part of something exceptional.

This role supports the creation of a declarative, mission-adaptable workflow interface for cyber operations. The capability will enable operators to express mission intent, define parameters and boundaries, understand system behavior, and guide automation through a clear, trustworthy operational experience. You will lead research, strategy, workflow design, prototyping, documentation, and briefing to help move the platform from static infrastructure management toward offensive mission automation.

What You'll Do

• Conduct user and mission research with analysts, operators, engineers, and mission stakeholders

• Analyze current workflows, decision points, constraints, workarounds, and latent operator needs

• Translate research findings into an experience strategy aligned with mission outcomes and system direction

• Define declarative workflows that allow operators to express intent, establish parameters, and set operational boundaries

• Create user stories, journey maps, workflow models, service blueprints, and information architecture that make complex work understandable

• Produce wireframes, prototypes, and high-fidelity interface concepts that translate strategy into tangible system behavior

• Design interactions that make system state, changes, constraints, automation behavior, and points of human judgment visible

• Plan and conduct usability studies, prototype evaluations, and evidence-based design iteration

• Collaborate with software developers, systems engineers, and mission teams to move concepts into operational capability

• Document and brief research findings, experience strategy, design rationale, and the recommended path forward

• Travel as needed to engage operators, understand mission environments, facilitate working sessions, and brief stakeholders

Who This Might Be a Fit For

• You have worked across user research, experience strategy, interaction design, prototyping, and evaluation

• You are comfortable engaging operators in complex mission environments and creating clarity from ambiguity

• You understand how mission intent, automation, data, policy, and interface behavior intersect

• You can distinguish a stated request from the underlying operational problem

• You prefer clarity over cleverness and durable solutions over quick fixes

• You can document and brief strategy in a way that technical, operational, and leadership audiences can act on

Required Skills

• User research and human-centered design for complex digital systems

• Experience strategy, workflow modeling, and information architecture

• Interaction design, wireframing, and prototyping

• Usability evaluation and evidence-based iteration

• Documentation and briefing of research, strategy, and design rationale

• Collaboration with software development and systems engineering teams

Helpful Experience Areas

• Offensive cyber operations or related cyber, intelligence, or national security environments

• Declarative workflow systems or mission automation

• Analyst and operator experience design

• Designing for automation transparency, human oversight, and understandable system behavior

• Systems thinking across software, data, workflows, and organizational constraints

• Field research and stakeholder engagement in operational environments

Years of Experience and Degree Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Human -Computer Interaction, User Experience Design, Human Factors, Interaction Design, Psychology, or a related field and 10 years of experience

OR an associate degree and 14 years of experience

OR 16 years of experience without a degree

Degrees must be obtained from an accredited college or university recognized by the U.S. Department of Education.

Work Environment

Based in Columbia, MD

TBD telework per week, subject to manager approval and tasking

Travel based on mission needs to engage operators, support research, facilitate working sessions, and brief stakeholders

Multidisciplinary teams supporting cyber mission systems in classified environments

Senior individual contributors are trusted to shape experience direction and connect evidence to execution

What Comes With It

You will have what you need to do your best work:

• Fully covered health insurance for medical, dental, and vision

• Paid parental leave: 16 weeks if you give birth, 4 weeks if your partner does

• Flexible leave: 36 days total each year, including 25 days of PTO and 11 paid holidays

• 401(k) for your future

• Short-term and long-term disability

• Annual health stipend if you opt out of our insurance

The Extras? They're Built In.

No points systems. No bean bags. Just clarity, autonomy, and a mission that matters.

Shadow invests in exceptional people because demanding work requires more than a paycheck. Our benefits are designed to provide meaningful support inside and outside the mission.

See our benefit plan at: https://www.shadowstrategies.io/benefits

Shadow Strategies is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We are committed to creating a workplace that values diversity and fosters inclusion. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, gender identity, and sexual orientation), national origin, age, disability, genetic information, or any other protected status in accordance with applicable federal, state, and local laws.

Salary is determined by various factors , including but not limited to location, the individual's particular combination of education, knowledge, skills, competencies, and experience, as well as contract-specific affordability and organizational requirements.