Job Description

What We Do

At the SEI AI Division, we conduct research in applied artificial intelligence and the engineering questions related to the practical design and implementation of AI technologies and systems. We currently lead a community-wide movement to mature the discipline of AI Engineering for Defense and National Security.

As our government customers adopt AI and machine learning to provide leap-ahead mission capabilities, we

• Build real-world, mission-scale AI capabilities through solving practical engineering problems
• Discover and define the processes, practices, and tools to support operationalizing AI for human-centered, robust, secure, and scalable mission capabilities
• Prepare our customers to be ready for the unique challenges of adopting, deploying, using, and maintaining AI capabilities
• Identify and investigate emerging AI and AI-adjacent technologies that are rapidly transforming the technology landscape

Are you creative, curious, and collaborative? Do you enjoy doing meaningful and complex work? Are you interested in making a difference by bringing innovation to government organizations and beyond? Apply to join our team.

Position Summary

As an Associate Design Researcher in the AI Division, you will be responsible for planning and implementing forward looking design research that supports our current technical research work and strategic vision. You should be able to quickly adapt to new types of projects, conduct impactful design research to understand and articulate customer needs, facilitate working sessions, and translate concepts into visual solutions. You will work with technical staff and customers to conduct requirements gathering and group facilitation. You will contribute directly to customer projects that require design expertise and knowledge of user experience and human-centered design. You will scope, shape, plan, and analyze generative and evaluative research studies to understand user goals, needs, attitudes, and behaviors. You will communicate problems through storytelling and provide actionable insights.

As a member of the AI Division team, you will work on important and challenging problems and create interactive prototypes to respond to them. The work environment is dynamic and flexible, with constant opportunities to develop new skills, learn about new frameworks and techniques, collaborate with campus researchers, and make a difference. As a Design Researcher, you will set standards of design research for the SEI AI Division; use research practices to further design work; and help shape the vision and approach to current national initiatives. You will collaborate with researchers to visualize the desired effect of their work, interpreting and problem solving through visualization and conveying the meaning and impact of our research

Duties:

• Design Process Leadership: You will lead and facilitate project teams and customers through the design research process to yield actionable insights. Interpret ideas into visualizations, prototyping, refining research, communications design. Conduct software user design research. Set standards for design research
• Research: You will identify, shape, conduct, and analyze design research studies that utilize diverse research methods (qualitative/quantitative, behavioral/attitudinal, generative/evaluative, and mixed methods) within the appropriate scope. Research studies may include interviews, observations, ethnographic style studies, usability studies, heuristics evaluations, surveys, and others as appropriate. Translate quantitative and qualitative research data and insights into solutions and design choices that reflect the needs, wants, and requirements of diverse sets of stakeholders
• Collaboration and Facilitation: Participate on teams of software developers, researchers, designers, product managers, and technical leads to help design impactful work. You will collaborate with a diverse team of machine learning, cognitive science, engineering, human-computer interaction and other researchers to develop guiding questions and overall strategy. You will work closely with customers, researchers, and engineers to identify requirements for prototypes and experimental setups necessary to conduct research. Design and facilitate working sessions to collect and prioritize research and technical information and requirements. Collaborate with other researchers, technologists, and our government customers from the beginning of research projects to understand challenges, needs, and possible solutions to contribute to the overall design strategy. Collaborate with others (both in the SEI AI Division and across the SEI) to explore problems, generate ideas, create design research solutions, and ensure their implementation.
• Actionable Insights and Tangible Artifacts: You will gather and synthesize research findings into actionable insights, packaged and delivered with a focus on audience needs and priorities. You will visualize research findings into tangible artifacts such as customer journey maps, service blueprints, and prototypes. Use skills as a strategist, systems thinker, and visual storyteller to craft beautiful and impactful experiences that showcase our technical work and research. Identify conceptual and strategic direction to translate strategy into action. Develop documents, mockups, models, workflows, presentations, infographics, and other design artifacts to communicate findings, ideas, and solutions.
• Community Engagement and Publishing: You will communicate and share research findings through internally and externally published research papers and presentations. Present design artifacts in clear and compelling ways.

Requirements:

Knowledge and Experience: You have experience conducting interviews, observations, ethnographic style studies, usability studies, heuristics evaluations, surveys, and/or other studies. You have experience facilitating workshops and sessions for need finding, ideation, alignment, and engagement with a multi-disciplinary teams and stakeholders. You have recent experience with prototyping and research tools and software. You have experience conducting design and/or HCI research across multiple initiatives at once. You have experience working as a researcher in an industry with a specialized audience (e.g., scientists, Army). Experience developing policies and best practices is a plus.

Research Portfolio and Publications: Your portfolio of work and/or publications demonstrates research practices and appropriate analysis methods. Research in systems design, information visualization, ethics, user experience design, machine emotional intelligence, decision systems, human-robot interaction, augmented and virtual reality, or related fields is a plus.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

• Communication and Collaboration: You are empathetic and communicative, and an inspiring collaborator. You are able to understand and communicate complex concepts clearly across different audiences. You have strong attention for detail in thinking, implementation, and documentation. You have a proven ability to work both independently and with a diverse cross-functional team (such as engineers and mathematicians) and other HCI researchers. You have experience conducting research for complex systems with engineers and experts of other disciplines.
• Versatility and Motivation: You are comfortable taking action amidst ambiguity, and you are excited to work within complex systems. You can meet deadlines while multi-tasking–sometimes under pressure and with shifting priorities. You are self-motivated and can work toward a common vision with little oversight.
• Curiosity and Creativity: You are interested in working on many different types of projects—ranging in time and scope from a few weeks to months, and from near-term solutions to the ambitious transformation of a customer’s organization.
• Advanced Technology Experience: You have experience and knowledge of leading-edge technologies and have demonstrated contributions to advanced technology developments. You have worked in areas related to machine learning, artificial intelligence, advanced computing, human-computer interaction, computer vision, machine emotional intelligence, or augmented and virtual reality.

Other Requirements:

• Bachelor’s degree in a technology field or other discipline relevant to design research. Master’s degree in design, human-computer interaction (HCI), user experience (UX), psychology, anthropology, sociology, or related field.
• 3+ years of professional experience doing qualitative research and translating research into actions alongside development teams.
• Experience working with the U.S. Government is a plus.
• Flexible to travel to other SEI offices in Pittsburgh and Washington, DC, sponsor sites, conferences, and offsite meetings on occasion. Moderate (25%) travel outside of your home location.
• You will be subject to a background investigation and must be eligible to obtain and maintain a Department of Defense security clearance.
• Applicants for this position must be currently legally authorized to work for CMU in the United States. CMU will not sponsor or take over sponsorship of an employment visa for this opportunity.

CMU’s COVID-19 Vaccination Requirements: As a condition of employment, Carnegie Mellon University requires all staff and faculty working in the United States to be fully vaccinated, including a booster when eligible, against COVID-19. Prior to commencement of employment, new hires in the United States must provide proof of vaccination or obtain an approved exemption. (Exemptions may be requested for medical reasons or for religious or strong moral or ethical conviction.) Staff and faculty must comply with all applicable COVID-19 mitigation requirements. Please see Minimum Requirements to Return to Campus for details regarding the university’s current COVID-19 mitigation requirements.

Location

Arlington, VA, Pittsburgh, PA

Job Function

Software/Applications Development/Engineering

Position Type

Staff – Regular

Full Time/Part time

Full time

Pay Basis

Salary

More Information:

• Please visit “Why Carnegie Mellon” to learn more about becoming part of an institution inspiring innovations that change the world.
• Click here to view a listing of employee benefits
• Carnegie Mellon University is an Equal Opportunity Employer/Disability/Veteran.
• Statement of Assurance