Service Designer, Temporary

📍 Job Overview

Job Title: Service Designer, Temporary

Company: Aviso Wealth

Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Job Type: CONTRACTOR

Category: Service Design / Customer Experience Operations

Date Posted: 2026-08-26

Experience Level: 5-10 Years

Remote Status: Hybrid (with remote potential)

🚀 Role Summary

• This role is focused on enhancing customer and employee experiences through strategic service design initiatives, with a strong emphasis on managing customer journeys and driving organizational design maturity.

• The Service Designer will act as a key consultant, leveraging research and design methodologies to identify pain points and develop innovative solutions within specific business lines.

• This position requires significant cross-functional collaboration to champion customer-centricity and influence business decisions through compelling storytelling and data-driven insights.

• The role involves leading end-to-end research, from problem definition to stakeholder presentations, and contributing to the optimization of service design operations for greater efficiency.

📝 Enhancement Note: While the title is "Service Designer," the responsibilities strongly align with a "Customer Experience Operations" or "Design Operations" function within a GTM or product development context. The focus on managing journeys, optimizing operations, and increasing design maturity indicates a role that bridges design execution with operational efficiency and strategic impact. The temporary nature (12 months) suggests a project-based engagement focused on specific improvement initiatives.

📈 Primary Responsibilities

• Manage and lead service design initiatives for two key customer journeys within a designated line of business, ensuring alignment with overall business objectives.

• Conduct comprehensive, end-to-end research to map current state front-end and back-end experiences, including participant coordination, research plan design, session facilitation, and data analysis.

• Synthesize research findings into actionable insights and present them to diverse stakeholder groups using various design artifacts such as personas, ecosystem maps, experience maps, and service blueprints.

• Facilitate ideation and prioritization sessions with cross-functional teams (including Subject Matter Experts and decision-makers) to explore and validate future state recommendations and potential CX initiatives.

• Contribute to the continuous improvement of service design operations by optimizing data repositories, participant management processes, templates, and tools, proactively seeking new and better ways of working.

• Drive an increase in customer centricity and design maturity across the organization through expertise, advocacy, and successful project outcomes.

• Provide subject matter expertise in research and service design to other internal departments and external partners as required, fostering a collaborative and knowledge-sharing environment.

📝 Enhancement Note: The responsibilities highlight a blend of strategic thinking, hands-on research execution, and influential stakeholder engagement. The emphasis on "optimizing service design operations" is a key indicator of the operations-focused nature of this role, moving beyond pure design execution to process improvement within the design function itself.

🎓 Skills & Qualifications

Education:

• Bachelor’s degree in Design, Human Computer Interaction, Human Factors, Psychology, or a closely related field is a mandatory requirement.

• A graduate degree in a relevant discipline is strongly preferred, indicating a potential for deeper theoretical understanding and advanced research capabilities. Experience:

• A minimum of 5 to 7 years of progressive experience in Service Design, User Research, Design Strategy, or a directly analogous field.

• Demonstrated experience in implementing fundamental service design methodologies, including in-depth interviews, contextual inquiries, diary studies, job shadowing, workshops, and concept testing.

• Proven track record of discovering, synthesizing, and socializing actionable insights that have demonstrably influenced business decisions and product roadmaps. Required Skills:

• Service Design Expertise: Deep understanding and practical application of user-centered design principles, design thinking methodologies, and comprehensive service design frameworks.

• User Research Proficiency: Expertise in designing and executing qualitative research initiatives, including participant recruitment, research planning, facilitation, and rigorous data analysis.

• Data Synthesis & Insight Generation: Ability to translate complex research data into clear, compelling, and actionable insights that inform strategic decisions and product development.

• Stakeholder Management & Influence: Proven ability to effectively collaborate with, influence, and manage stakeholders at all organizational levels, including senior leadership, to gain buy-in and drive change.

• Storytelling & Presentation: Exceptional skills in communicating complex ideas and research findings through compelling narratives and impactful presentations, using various design artifacts.

• Prototyping & Validation: Experience in developing prototypes and proof-of-concepts to test and validate future state experience recommendations.

Preferred Skills:

• Financial Services/Wealth Management Experience: Prior exposure to the financial services or wealth management industry is a significant asset, providing context for industry-specific challenges and customer behaviors.

• French Language Proficiency: Bilingual communication skills in French are considered an advantage, potentially for broader stakeholder engagement or client interaction.

• Advanced Design Tools: Familiarity with a wider array of design and research tools beyond the core requirements, indicating adaptability and a broad technical toolkit.

📝 Enhancement Note: The "5-7 years" requirement, coupled with the preference for a graduate degree, suggests this role is for a mid-to-senior level professional who can operate with autonomy and strategic influence. The emphasis on "influencing business decisions and product roadmaps" and "stakeholder management at all levels" points to a need for strong communication and strategic partnership skills, typical of senior operations or strategy roles.

📊 Process & Systems Portfolio Requirements

Portfolio Essentials:

• Case Studies of End-to-End Service Design Projects: Showcase a minimum of 2-3 comprehensive case studies demonstrating the full lifecycle of service design initiatives, from problem definition and research to solution design and impact assessment.

• Demonstration of Research Methodologies: Within case studies, clearly articulate the specific user research methods employed (e.g., contextual inquiries, in-depth interviews, journey mapping) and the rationale for their selection.

• Artifact Examples: Include high-fidelity examples of key design artifacts produced, such as detailed personas, comprehensive ecosystem maps, dynamic experience maps, and actionable service blueprints.

• Insight-to-Impact Correlation: Clearly link synthesized insights derived from research to specific business decisions, product roadmap adjustments, or CX improvements implemented, ideally with quantifiable results.

Process Documentation:

• Research Plan Documentation: Provide examples of well-structured research plans, outlining objectives, target participants, methodologies, timelines, and anticipated deliverables.

• Insight Synthesis Frameworks: Showcase how complex qualitative data was synthesized into clear, actionable insights, potentially through frameworks, affinity mapping outputs, or summary reports.

• Cross-Functional Workshop Facilitation: Detail experience in designing and facilitating collaborative workshops aimed at ideation, problem-solving, or future state journey mapping, including sample agendas or outputs.

• Service Design Operations Improvement: If applicable, include examples of contributions to improving design operations, such as template development, process standardization, or tool optimization, highlighting efficiency gains.

📝 Enhancement Note: For a Service Designer role, especially one with an operations component, a robust portfolio is critical. The emphasis here is on demonstrating not just design output, but the process and impact. For operations-focused candidates, showcasing how they improved design processes or operational efficiency within design projects will be highly advantageous. The specific tools mentioned (TheyDo, Dovetail, UserTesting) should be reflected in portfolio examples.

💵 Compensation & Benefits

Salary Range:

• The posted salary range for this temporary position is $70.00 to $75.00 CAD per hour.

• This rate is competitive for a contract Service Designer role in Vancouver, BC, reflecting the required experience level and specialized skill set.

• Compensation is determined based on a combination of candidate experience, specific qualifications, and the demands of the role, as well as Aviso Wealth's internal compensation structure for contract positions. Benefits:

• As a temporary contractor, standard employee benefits packages (e.g., health insurance, retirement plans, paid time off) are typically not included.

• Contractors may have access to certain statutory benefits as mandated by British Columbia provincial employment law.

• Further details on any potential contractor-specific perks or allowances would need to be clarified directly with the hiring team. Working Hours:

• The standard working hours for this role are 40 hours per week.

• While the role is hybrid, specific in-office days are not detailed, suggesting flexibility. Given the nature of service design and research, some flexibility in daily scheduling may be possible, but core collaboration hours will need to be observed.

📝 Enhancement Note: The hourly rate for a contract role of this nature in Vancouver is within the expected range for experienced professionals. It's crucial for candidates to understand that contractor roles typically do not include the same benefits as full-time employees. The "hybrid" designation suggests a need for some in-office presence for collaboration, but the "TELECOMMUTE" location type indicates remote work is a primary consideration.

🎯 Team & Company Context

🏢 Company Culture

Industry: Financial Services / Wealth Management. Aviso Wealth operates within a highly regulated and competitive sector, emphasizing trust, security, and long-term client relationships. This context means that design and operational improvements must be balanced with compliance and risk management.

Company Size: Approximately 1,000 employees. This mid-to-large size suggests a structured organization with established processes, but also enough agility to implement new strategies and designs. It allows for significant cross-functional interaction without being overly bureaucratic.

Founded: Aviso Wealth is backed by strong, established owners (credit union Centrals, Co-operators/CUMIS, and Desjardins), indicating a stable and reputable organization with a history of supporting financial services innovation. The company is building a "comprehensive, technology-enabled, client-centric wealth services ecosystem."

Team Structure:

• Experience Team: The Service Designer reports to the Director, Service Design, indicating a dedicated team focused on enhancing user and customer experiences. This team likely collaborates closely with Product Development, Marketing, and other customer-facing departments.

• Reporting Structure: The role is embedded within a specific line of business, working with two "product delivery squads." This suggests a matrixed reporting structure where the Service Designer has a primary reporting line to the Director of Service Design but also works closely with product managers and squad leads for day-to-day project direction.

• Cross-functional Collaboration: The role explicitly requires collaboration with SMEs and decision-makers across the organization, highlighting a strong emphasis on partnership and shared ownership of customer experience improvements. This is typical in GTM and operational excellence functions.

Methodology:

• Data-Driven Decision Making: The company values a data-driven approach, implying that insights from research and analytics are crucial for informing design and strategic decisions.

• Customer-Centricity: A core value at Aviso, driving the need for continuous improvement in customer journeys and employee experiences that support those journeys.

• Innovation & Agility: The "We Dare" value suggests an openness to exploring new ideas, challenging the status quo, and embracing change, which is essential for a Service Designer role.

Company Website: https://www.aviso.ca/

📝 Enhancement Note: The company's focus on building a "wealth services ecosystem" and its backing by major financial institutions suggest a stable environment with opportunities for impactful work. The "oneaviso" culture, emphasizing "We Care, We Dare, We Share, We Deliver," provides clear behavioral expectations for how operations and design professionals should conduct themselves and collaborate.

📈 Career & Growth Analysis

Operations Career Level: This role is positioned as a Senior Service Designer or Lead Service Designer for specific product lines. The 5-7 years of experience requirement, coupled with the responsibility for managing key customer journeys and influencing strategy, places this individual at a level where they are expected to lead initiatives, mentor others (implicitly), and operate with a high degree of autonomy. It's a hands-on role with significant strategic input.

Reporting Structure: The Service Designer reports directly to the Director, Service Design. However, they will work very closely with, and likely be influenced by, the product delivery squads and their respective leads for the two lines of business they are supporting. This dual influence requires strong adaptability and communication skills.

Operations Impact: The Service Designer's impact is measured through improvements in customer satisfaction, employee efficiency related to customer interactions, and the overall adoption of customer-centric design principles within the organization. By managing key journeys and driving design maturity, this role directly contributes to Aviso Wealth's strategic goal of creating a superior, technology-enabled wealth services ecosystem. Success means tangible improvements in user experience that can translate to increased client retention and operational efficiency.

Growth Opportunities:

• Specialization in Financial Services Design: Deepen expertise in service design within the complex and rewarding financial services industry, gaining valuable domain knowledge.

• Leadership in Design Operations: Contribute to and potentially lead initiatives to standardize and optimize service design processes and tools, a key growth area in operations.

• Strategic Influence & Project Leadership: Develop stronger capabilities in influencing executive-level decisions and leading complex, cross-functional design projects, potentially paving the way for future management roles within the Experience team or related GTM operations.

• Contract-to-Permanent Potential: While temporary, successful performance and business needs could open doors for permanent positions within Aviso Wealth, especially if the initiatives are ongoing.

📝 Enhancement Note: The growth opportunities lean towards specialization within a specific industry and the operationalization of design practices. For candidates looking to move into more formal "Revenue Operations" or "Sales Operations" roles, highlighting the strategic influence and process improvement aspects of this Service Design role will be key.

🌐 Work Environment

Office Type: Hybrid. This indicates a blend of remote work and in-office collaboration. The specific balance is not defined, but it suggests that candidates should be comfortable working both independently from home and participating in in-person meetings or workshops.

Office Location(s): Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. This location offers access to a thriving tech and design community. The company also has offices in Toronto, Montreal, and Winnipeg, suggesting potential for broader organizational interaction if needed.

Workspace Context:

• Collaborative Environment: The emphasis on cross-functional teams and stakeholder management implies a workspace that encourages open communication and teamwork, whether virtual or in-person.

• Tools & Technology: Access to a suite of design and research tools (e.g., Figma, Miro, UserTesting, Dovetail) is expected, supporting efficient workflow and data analysis. The role also involves contributing to optimizing these tools and repositories.

• Impactful Projects: Working on "two key customer journeys" for a major wealth management organization offers the opportunity to engage with significant business challenges and contribute to impactful, visible projects.

Work Schedule:

• Standard 40-hour work week.

• The hybrid nature suggests some degree of flexibility, but requires strong self-management and availability for team collaboration, which may include core business hours and scheduled meetings.

📝 Enhancement Note: The hybrid nature is a key consideration for candidates. While remote work is possible, the expectation of collaboration suggests that proximity to a major hub like Vancouver might be beneficial, or that strong virtual collaboration skills are paramount. The role of optimizing "service design operations" means the candidate will be working with and refining the very tools and processes that enable this hybrid environment.

📄 Application & Portfolio Review Process

Interview Process:

• Initial Screening: Likely a review of the resume and portfolio to assess alignment with core requirements and experience.

• Hiring Manager Interview: A discussion with the Director, Service Design, to delve into experience, methodology, and cultural fit. This stage will heavily scrutinize portfolio examples.

• Cross-Functional/Squad Interviews: Meetings with members of the product delivery squads and key stakeholders (SMEs, decision-makers) to assess collaboration skills, ability to influence, and understanding of business context.

• Potential Design Challenge/Case Study Presentation: Candidates may be asked to present a detailed case study from their portfolio or work through a hypothetical service design problem. This is where the depth of their process and strategic thinking will be evaluated.

• Final Round: May involve a broader leadership discussion or a final assessment of strategic fit.

Portfolio Review Tips:

• Structure for Impact: Organize your portfolio to clearly tell the story of each project. Start with the business problem or user need, detail your process (research, ideation, prototyping), showcase key artifacts, and most importantly, highlight the insights and their resulting impact (metrics, business decisions, CX improvements).

• Focus on Process, Not Just Deliverables: For operations-minded roles, demonstrating how you arrived at solutions and how you optimized processes is as important as the final designs. Explain your methodology for research, synthesis, and collaboration.

• Quantify Results: Whenever possible, use data and metrics to demonstrate the success of your initiatives. This could include improvements in customer satisfaction scores, efficiency gains, adoption rates, or revenue impact.

• Tailor to Aviso: Research Aviso Wealth's business, values, and customer base. Frame your case studies to show how your skills and experience are directly relevant to their challenges and goals, especially in the financial services sector.

• Showcase Collaboration: Highlight instances where you successfully collaborated with cross-functional teams, managed stakeholders, and influenced decisions.

Challenge Preparation:

• Understand the Business Context: Be prepared to discuss the financial services industry, wealth management, and the specific challenges Aviso Wealth might face regarding customer experience.

• Service Design Frameworks: Refresh your knowledge of core service design methodologies, journey mapping, blueprinting, and ideation techniques.

• Problem-Solving Approach: Practice articulating your approach to complex problems, focusing on a human-centered, data-informed process.

• Tool Proficiency: Be ready to discuss your experience with the mentioned tools (Figma, Miro, Dovetail, UserTesting, TheyDo) and how you leverage them to drive efficiency and insights.

📝 Enhancement Note: The emphasis on portfolio review and potential challenges underscores the practical, results-oriented nature of this role. Candidates should prepare to "show, don't just tell" their capabilities, with a focus on how their design work translates into tangible business outcomes and operational improvements.

🛠 Tools & Technology Stack

Primary Tools:

• Design & Collaboration: Figma (for UI/UX design, prototyping), Miro (for collaborative whiteboarding, ideation, journey mapping).

• Research & Insight Synthesis: Dovetail (for organizing and analyzing qualitative research data), UserTesting.com (for remote usability testing and feedback collection), TheyDo (for service design process management and journey mapping).

• Data Analysis & Insight: Trend Watching (for market and trend analysis), Dscout (for qualitative data collection and analysis, particularly ethnography).

Analytics & Reporting:

• While not explicitly listed as primary tools for this role, a Service Designer would likely interact with analytics platforms (e.g., Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics) and internal BI tools to understand user behavior and measure the impact of their designs. Proficiency in interpreting data from these sources is assumed.

• The role includes contributing to "data repositories," suggesting familiarity with systems that store and manage user research data and insights. CRM & Automation:

• While not a direct CRM role, understanding how service design impacts customer journeys within a CRM context (e.g., Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics) is beneficial. The role focuses on the experience that drives CRM interactions and outcomes.

• Automation tools might be indirectly relevant if service design improvements lead to process automation initiatives.

📝 Enhancement Note: This role requires proficiency in a specific set of design and research tools, which are crucial for day-to-day execution and for demonstrating expertise. Candidates should be prepared to discuss their hands-on experience with these tools and how they leverage them for effective service design and operational efficiency.

👥 Team Culture & Values

Operations Values:

• Customer Focus (We Care): A fundamental value driving the need to deeply understand and improve customer experiences. Operations professionals are expected to champion the customer in all decisions.

• Innovation & Adaptability (We Dare): Encourages challenging the status quo, exploring new methods, and embracing change. This aligns with the dynamic nature of service design and continuous process improvement.

• Collaboration & Knowledge Sharing (We Share): Emphasizes working together, seeking diverse perspectives, and openly sharing knowledge. Operations roles thrive in environments where cross-functional partnerships are valued.

• Accountability & Results (We Deliver): A focus on ownership, commitment, and delivering meaningful outcomes. Operations professionals are expected to be results-oriented and drive tangible improvements.

Collaboration Style:

• Cross-Functional Partnership: The role demands active collaboration with product delivery squads, SMEs, and leadership, requiring a proactive and communicative approach to build consensus and drive initiatives forward.

• Empathy-Driven Design: The team likely fosters a culture where empathy for users and colleagues is paramount, informing how design solutions are developed and how feedback is given and received.

• Continuous Improvement: The stated goal of "optimizing service design operations" and increasing "design maturity" suggests a culture that values learning, experimentation, and ongoing refinement of processes and practices.

📝 Enhancement Note: The "oneaviso" values provide a strong framework for understanding the expected behaviors and cultural fit. Candidates should articulate how their approach to service design and operations aligns with these core values, particularly "We Dare" (innovation) and "We Deliver" (results).

⚡ Challenges & Growth Opportunities

Challenges:

• Balancing Stakeholder Needs: Navigating diverse stakeholder priorities and perspectives to drive consensus on design recommendations within two different business lines.

• Driving Organizational Design Maturity: Influencing and educating teams across the organization to adopt more customer-centric and design-thinking approaches, which can be a cultural shift.

• Measuring Impact in a Complex Industry: Quantifying the ROI of service design initiatives within the financial services sector, which can have long sales cycles and complex customer journeys.

• Temporary Role Dynamics: Adapting quickly to a new organization and embedding effectively within teams for a 12-month contract, with the pressure to deliver impactful results within a defined timeframe.

Learning & Development Opportunities:

• Deep Domain Expertise: Gaining in-depth knowledge of wealth management products, services, and customer needs, a valuable specialization.

• Service Design Operations Optimization: Contributing to and learning from efforts to refine and enhance the operational processes and tool stack for service design within a large organization.

• Strategic Influence Development: Honing skills in presenting to leadership, influencing strategic decisions, and managing complex cross-functional projects.

• Exposure to Diverse Business Lines: Understanding the unique customer journeys and operational nuances of different product delivery squads.

📝 Enhancement Note: The challenges highlight the need for resilience, strong influencing skills, and a proactive approach to problem-solving. The growth opportunities are substantial for someone looking to specialize in UX/CX within a specific industry and contribute to the operational excellence of a design function.

💡 Interview Preparation

Strategy Questions:

• "Describe a time you had to influence a skeptical stakeholder to adopt a new customer-centric approach. What was your strategy and the outcome?" (Assesses influence, stakeholder management, and impact).

• "Walk us through your process for managing two distinct customer journeys simultaneously. How do you prioritize, manage dependencies, and ensure consistent quality?" (Assesses project management, operational efficiency, and multi-tasking).

• "How do you approach identifying and defining the core problem when faced with complex user feedback or business challenges?" (Assesses problem definition, analytical skills, and research methodology). Company & Culture Questions:

• "Based on your understanding of Aviso Wealth and the financial services industry, what do you see as the biggest opportunity for improving customer experience?" (Assesses research, strategic thinking, and industry knowledge).

• "Our values are 'We Care, We Dare, We Share, We Deliver.' Can you provide an example of how you've embodied these values in a previous role, particularly related to driving change or collaboration?" (Assesses cultural fit and behavioral alignment).

• "How do you measure the success and impact of your service design work, especially in a complex financial services environment?" (Assesses results orientation and understanding of ROI). Portfolio Presentation Strategy:

• The 'Why' Behind Your Work: For each case study, clearly articulate the business problem or user need that initiated the project.

• Your Unique Contribution: Detail your specific role and responsibilities, especially highlighting any contributions to process improvement or operational efficiency.

• Show, Don't Just Tell: Use visuals (artifacts, journey maps, blueprints) effectively. Be prepared to zoom in on specific details and explain your design choices.

• Focus on Insights & Impact: Explicitly connect your research insights to the solutions you designed and the business outcomes achieved. Quantify wherever possible.

• Practice Your Narrative: Rehearse your presentation to ensure it flows logically, stays within time limits, and highlights your key strengths relevant to Aviso Wealth's needs.

📝 Enhancement Note: Interview preparation should focus on demonstrating not only design craft but also strategic thinking, operational acumen, and the ability to drive tangible business results within a regulated industry. Candidates should be ready to map their portfolio examples directly to Aviso's values and stated goals.

📌 Application Steps

To apply for this operations-focused Service Designer position:

• Submit your application through the provided Workable link, ensuring your resume and any attached documents are tailored for this specific role.

• Curate Your Portfolio for Operations Impact: Select 2-3 of your most impactful service design case studies. For each, explicitly highlight how you identified problems, designed solutions, and, crucially, how you contributed to process optimization, stakeholder alignment, or improved operational efficiency within the design process. Use the specified tools (Figma, Miro, Dovetail, etc.) as context for your workflow.

• Optimize Your Resume for Keywords: Integrate keywords from the job description such as "Service Design," "User Research," "Design Strategy," "Customer Journey Mapping," "Service Blueprints," "Stakeholder Management," "Figma," "Miro," and "Dovetail." Emphasize achievements related to influencing business decisions, driving design maturity, and optimizing processes.

• Prepare Your Portfolio Presentation: Practice walking through your selected case studies, focusing on your process, the insights you generated, the impact of your work (quantified where possible), and your collaborative approach. Be ready to discuss how you leveraged specific tools and methodologies.

• Research Aviso Wealth's Business and Values: Understand their position in the wealth management industry, their client base, and their "oneaviso" culture. Frame your answers and portfolio examples to demonstrate how your skills and approach align with their strategic goals and values, particularly in enhancing customer and employee experiences.

⚠️ Important Notice: This enhanced job description includes AI-generated insights and operations industry-standard assumptions. All details should be verified directly with the hiring organization before making application decisions.