Deputy Director / Director, Design Management - MOE Digital Excellence & Products Division (DXD)

Deputy Director / Director, Design Management - MOE Digital Excellence & Products Division (DXD)

About GovTech

GovTech is the lead agency driving Singapore’s Smart Nation initiatives and public sector digital transformation. As the Centre of Excellence for Infocomm Technology and Smart Systems (ICT & SS), GovTech develops the Singapore Government’s capabilities in Data Science & Artificial Intelligence, Application Development, Smart City Technology, Digital Infrastructure, and Cybersecurity.

At GovTech, we offer you a purposeful career to make lives better where we empower our people to master their craft through robust learning and development opportunities all year round.

 

Play a part in Singapore’s vision to build a Smart Nation and embark on your meaningful journey to build tech for public good. Join us to advance our mission and shape your future with us today!

 

Learn more about GovTech at tech.gov.sg.

Role Purpose

As Deputy Director / Director of Design Management, you define, shape and communicate a clear design vision aligned with MOE’s education priorities and long-term digital ambitions. You are accountable for design quality, judgment, and impact – ensuring design is a core capability in shaping how MOE delivers meaningful digital products and services at scale.

You lead with clarity and conviction, shaping product and service strategy through deep user understanding, systems thinking, and strong design judgment. You develop future design leaders, influence organisational direction, and ensure that digital products measurably improve the experiences of educators, students, parents, and MOE officers. You contribute significantly to organisational strategy, product culture, and cross-agency collaboration.

This role reports directly to MOE CIO and works closely with the Product & Engineering Directors to ensure cohesive product development across MOE’s digital portfolio.

Key Responsibilities

1. Lead Design Strategy at Scale

• Shape product and service strategy through deep user understanding, evidence-based discovery, and clear problem framing
• Ensure design is embedded upstream – guiding what teams build, not just how solutions look
• Balance user value, policy intent, operational realities, and technical feasibility in strategic decision-making
• Translate complex design trade-offs into clear, persuasive narratives for senior leadership
• Drive coherence across the portfolio so individual products reinforce a broader, intentional service ecosystem

2. Set the Standard for Design Excellence

• Establish and uphold high standards for interaction design, service journeys, content design, accessibility, and usability
• Personally review and critique critical initiatives, providing decisive guidance when stakes are high
• Identify systemic UX and service issues and address them through shared patterns, platforms, and design systems
• Ensure design quality is not subjective but measured, tied to user outcomes such as task success, effort reduction, satisfaction, and operational efficiency
• Champion inclusive and accessible design as baseline requirements

3. Build Future Design Leaders

• Lead and develop senior designers, design managers, and emerging leaders across DXD
• Set clear expectations for excellence in craft, product thinking, and leadership maturity
• Create strong coaching, feedback, and succession pipelines to ensure long-term capability sustainability
• Shape hiring strategy and talent calibration to build a high-performing, respected design practice
• Foster a culture of critique, learning, and professional pride – where designers are confident, rigorous, and accountable

4. Enable Product-Centric Ways of Working

• Embed design-led discovery, testing, and iteration as standard practice, not optional activities
• Clarify roles and operating norms between Product, Design, and Engineering to reduce friction and improve decision quality
• Design and scale workflows that help teams move fast without compromising quality or intent
• Navigate complex stakeholder environments with empathy and firmness – protecting user outcomes while respecting governance constraints

What Success Looks Like

• Strategic Clarity: DXD products consistently address well-defined user problems, not solution-led assumptions
• Meaningful Impact: Measurable improvements in user experience, reduced friction, and better outcomes for educators and schools
• Design Maturity: Design is consistently trusted, sought after, and embedded early in portfolio-level decision-making
• Leadership Depth: A strong bench of capable design leaders ready to take on larger responsibilities
• Systemic Improvement: Reusable patterns, standards, and platforms that materially raise quality across all teams
• Sector Influence: MOE DXD design work actively shapes and contributes to broader GovTech and Whole-of-Government design practices

Candidate Profile

You are a senior design leader with both strategic depth and practical judgment.

Essential Experience

• Led design for complex, high-stakes digital products across multiple releases
• Managed and developed senior designers and managers, including performance and talent decisions
• Shaped product and service strategy – not just execution
• Influenced senior stakeholders in ambiguous, politically sensitive environments
• Built or significantly evolved design practices that improved outcomes at scale

 Highly Desirable

• Experience leading design across multiple teams or portfolios
• Demonstrated impact linking design decisions to measurable outcomes
• Experience in government, education, or other complex public-sector contexts
• Strong grounding in accessibility, inclusive design, and service design

Key Competencies

• Design Leadership: Sets and drives a clear portfolio-level design direction, shaping product and service strategy while remaining hands-on in high-impact, high-risk initiatives where strong design judgment is required.
• People & Capability Leadership: Builds and sustains high-performing design teams through clear expectations, regular and candid feedback, and deliberate development of future design leaders, ensuring depth, succession, and long-term capability.
• Strategic Stakeholder Management: Influences senior leaders with clear, evidence-based design narratives, navigating complex organisational, policy, and cross-agency dynamics while balancing competing priorities and protecting user value.
• Systems Thinking: Identifies patterns, leverage points, and systemic opportunities across multiple products and services, driving coherence, reuse, and consistency to raise design maturity and effectiveness at scale.
• Outcomes & Impact Focus: Connects design work to measurable user, operational, and organisational outcomes, holding teams accountable for delivering real-world impact rather than design outputs alone.
• Adaptive Judgment: Exercises sound judgment in government contexts, adapting design approaches to governance constraints, policy shifts, and evolving organisational needs, and leading teams confidently through ambiguity and change.

 

GovTech is an equal opportunity employer committed to fostering an inclusive workplace that values diverse voices and perspectives, as we believe it is key to innovation. Our employee benefits are based on a total rewards approach, offering a holistic and market-competitive suite of perks. We champion flexible work arrangements (subject to your job role) and trust you to manage your time to deliver your best. 

Learn more about life inside GovTech at go.gov.sg/GovTechCareers