Principal Design Researcher and Service Designer (m/f/d)

For one of our clients, a global pioneer in Medical Diagnostics, we are currently looking for a dedicated Principal Design Researcher and Service Designer .

In this role you’ll be part of building design maturity for our client with peers who are passionate, energetic and caring in a connected, multicultural, highly motivated team.

We are seeking a leader who confidently manages the overall research delivery operations, builds strong relationships with both team members and customers, and impacts projects and business by enabling customer-centric best practices and strategic thinking.

General Information:

• Latest start date: January 2027
• Duration: 6 months
• Extension: up to another 6 months
• Contract type: temporary contract via Randstad (employment)
• Home Office: possible, to be discussed
• Working hours: standard

Tasks & Responsibilities:

• Leads design research teams in large/global cross-chapters projects.
• Navigates the complexity of business objectives and customer needs and translates them into design decisions by applying a solid design thinking process aimed to successfully impact business and customer experience.
• Produces key deliverables and leads the client conversation within their discipline
• Analyses and evaluates design challenges from multiple perspectives, and translates them quickly into granular activities for the team.
• Translates the client's expectations to detailed team day-to-day workstream work, and is able to speak to this integration in future conversations.
• Coaches cross-chapter team members and other designers around design methodologies and best practices contributing to their skills development.
• Leads practice discussions and may lead some aspects of team culture and rituals.
• Gathers system-level information from multiple sources and communicate clearly to internal clients, users and customers.
• Defines workshop goals and objectives, design and plan workshop exercises, facilitates workshop sessions and synthesizes information to support strategic project decisions.
• Supports more senior roles in shaping approaches and pitching work to clients.
• Supports more senior roles in managing day-to-day activities, and understands stakeholders’ expectations and course-correct deviations in the project plan.
• Leads the discussion about domain and regulatory context with clients, users and customers, and incorporates these inputs into design solutions.
• Takes part in CXSD work packages aimed to create more efficient and effective processes and practices.
• Supports constructive critique and personal feedback opportunities within the team, such as retrospectives, and suggest actions to take.
• Creates content to support thought leadership initiatives.
• Helps define overarching story and frameworks to be used during client presentations. Communicates storyline to clients at Roche and potential users and customers, as appropriate.
• Represents the CXSD team in internal events and meetings, and articulates the business value of design.
• Actively captures value stories on projects and shares internally or via thought leadership.
• Identifies inter-dependencies or risks early on, and propose solutions on how to address them.
• Oversees and evaluates new team members during ramp-up. Acts as a buddy.

Must Haves:

• Strong in-depth knowledge in Design Research and broad knowledge of related design disciplines (i.e. Product Design and Service Design).
• Ability to orchestrate the research activity across multiple projects.
• A proven track record in creating experience strategy based on customer insights.
• Ability to manage both qualitative and quantitative research methodologies and different data set integration.
• Ability to contribute to several products or services that have come to market with ownership of deliverables.
• Experience in guiding more junior designers on projects that require in-depth knowledge of healthcare solution areas and related regulations.
• Minimum 5-10 years of experience in MedTech or regulated environments.
• Great presentation skills and communicates ideas, solutions and deliverables effectively and logically when asked to.
• Strategic thinker and results oriented able to drive experience and business conversations.
• Great team player able to generate consensus and buy-in in complex organizational contexts.
• Curious and humble: develop a learner approach to research and design challenges.
• Creative problem solvers are able to look for the best solution to address the challenge.
• Data driven to ground decision making on a robust understanding of the problem space.
• Often the "back-bone" of projects from beginning to end.
• Usually leads the design process of one or two main projects and also manages design research discussions around similar projects or similar environments.
• Able to communicate organizational and product development changes to cross‑chapter team members and other designers.
• Observes project challenges and discusses contingencies and mitigation ideas with project lead.
• Demonstrates resilience in the face of failure, obstacles, or project changes.
• Has a deep commitment to the long‑term project goals and is able to direct product and design team attention to them.
• Thinks logically and critically about client problems and is methodical and process-oriented on tackling those problems.
• Able to work and to manage their project development independently. Requires only minimal guidance from more senior roles.
• Knows how to independently engage and communicate with customers and potential customers to enable customer centricity within projects.