Contract UX Designer, Design Sprint Facilitator — Public Spaces Incubator

About New_ Public We're a nonprofit R&D lab that's reimagining social media. Join us in building digital public spaces that connect people, embrace pluralism, and build community. We are researchers, engineers, designers, and community leaders. We want more healthy, flourishing spaces on the internet. We have two main strategies to achieve this: helping local communities across America create more flourishing digital spaces and developing prototypes for digital conversation with public service media organizations. We work by partnering and co-designing with community stewards (moderators, administrators) and public institutions. We're in this to serve, remove obstacles to power, and make life significantly better for all people, especially folks from underestimated communities. We think this work is essential for democracy. About the role The Public Spaces Incubator (PSI) team is entering a new phase of exploration. Having spent the last few years heads-down building and refining our PSI toolkit with public service media (PSM) partners, we're now turning our attention to two open-ended problem spaces: AI and the future of public conversation , and news creators . These sprints build upon insights garnered from the PSI project as well as New_ Public’s latest research, After the Feed: Trust, connection, and the next era of social technology . We're looking for a contract UX Designer to help plan, co-facilitate, and contribute to a series of 4-5 remote or in-person sprints, alongside our product director and staff researcher, on these themes through the end of 2026. The majority of our sprints will be remote over video conference, with the possibility of 1-2 in-person sprints. This is not a conventional design role. You won't be shipping polished production UI — you'll be helping a small, cross-disciplinary team (a product director, engineers, a researcher, a PM) rapidly enter unfamiliar territory, form hypotheses, and produce scrappy prototypes that test those hypotheses. You'll do this in close partnership with our team, stepping into a multi-faceted role including co-facilitation, design-coaching, and sprint participation. Key responsibilities: Co-plan, co-lead and co-facilitate design sprints on the themes of AI/public conversation and news creators, including structuring the day-by-day agenda, sketching activities, voting, and prototyping. Partner with our product director, staff researcher, as well as other internal stakeholders to help scope each sprint into a clear, well-bounded shared brief, and to help shape the shared knowledge base (research insights, subject-matter expert input, past prototypes) that grounds the sprint. Guide the team through the "map & understand → sketch & diverge → discuss & decide → storyboard & prototype → demo & retro" arc, including designing sketching exercises (e.g., Crazy 8s, worst-idea/flip-it) suited to each problem space. Coach engineers and other non-designers on the design process, especially writing user stories, mapping user journeys, and building user flows. Facilitate rapid, structured prototyping using AI-assisted design and coding tools: actively coaching the team to stay in low-fidelity long enough to interrogate product mechanics and key hypotheses before leveraging AI tools to generate high-fidelity output. Simultaneously participate in sketching and prototyping activities during the sprint and actively contribute to the body of work being produced using the design/prototyping tools of your choice. (As the only designer on the sprint team, focus on ideas that benefit most from a designer’s perspective, expertise, and execution.) Help the team engage thoughtfully with an unfamiliar user group (news creators) and open-ended, still-forming problem space (AI and agentic interfaces), including translating research and provocations into sketchable, testable concepts. Collaborate closely with our product director to synthesize insights from the sprint and help shape recommendations for how to carry innovation work forward into subsequent quarters. Maintain clear documentation of sprint artifacts (briefs, user stories, journeys, flows, prototypes, retro notes) for the team and future sprints to build on. About you: Substantial experience planning and facilitating design sprints both remotely and in-person, ideally including experience adapting the canonical sprint format to suit the needs of the team and the problem space (e.g. smartly compressing the 5-day sprint into 3 days). Strong grounding in the fundamentals of UX process — user stories, user journeys, user flows, wireframing — and skilled at coaching non-designers (engineers, researchers, PMs) through these steps. 3+ years of experience in product design, including expertise in Figma and experience working on cross-functional product teams and shipping products/services. Organized and excellent facilitator and communicator: able to hold a room (over video or in person), synthesize divergent input in real time, and keep a small team aligned and moving through a tightly scheduled sprint. Adept at providing the right structure and scaffolding that will accelerate a team’s exploration of ambiguous, open-ended problem spaces. Comfortable working alongside product, research, and engineering as equal collaborators and peers. Hands-on, demonstrated experience using AI coding/design agents (e.g., Claude, or similar tools) to accelerate prototyping, paired with a clear point of view on where AI helps versus where it papers over unresolved product questions. Genuine interest in and some familiarity with the media/news ecosystem, prosocial design, or online community. Available for concentrated blocks of time around each sprint (roughly a 3-day sprint plus scoping/prep and retro/follow-up), on a contract basis, likely across multiple sprints in Q3 and Q4. Experience designing for, or a strong interest in, social/community products or civic/public-interest technology is a plus. More information and next steps: Location: United States or Canada (fully remote) Rate: $90-$120 USD per hour based on experience. Hours per month to be discussed and mutually agreed each month (expected range: ~30-60 hours per month). This is a part-time, contract position. The Process Submission: Submit your resume, cover letter, and design portfolio which encompasses your work as a UX designer as well as a design sprint facilitator using the “Apply here” link. First Interview: After screening all applications, we will select candidates for Round 1 interviews. Those candidates will be contacted to interview with PSI’s product director. Second Interview: Selected Round 1 candidates move forward to Round 2 of our interview process. Those candidates will be invited to a group interview with PSI’s staff researcher and program manager. Reference Check : We will request contact information for two (2) professional references from selected candidates. Offer: We will extend an offer to the candidate who best aligns with the key criteria for this role. If you’re not sure that you’re a perfect fit for the role and don’t meet every single qualification, we still encourage you to apply! We’re primarily interested in meeting candidates who are excited about contributing to the future of healthy digital public spaces, eager to learn, and ready to contribute to a diverse and inclusive work environment. Candidates who are from communities underrepresented in tech are especially encouraged to apply.