Job Description

Company Description

The San Francisco Planning Department is recruiting for one (1) Permanent Exempt (PEX) Content Designer & User Researcher for PermitSF.

Specific information regarding this recruitment process is listed below:

• Application Opening: November 9, 2026
• Application Deadline: November 23, 2026, 5:00 PM PST
• Compensation Range: $134,082 - $168,688 annually
• Analyst: Zoey Feng

Permanent Exempt: This is a full-time Permanent Exempt position that is excluded by the Charter from the competitive civil service examination process and shall serve at the discretion of the Appointment Officer. The duration of the appointment shall not exceed 36 months.

The Department

The San Francisco Planning Department (CPC) shapes how land is used to meet community needs and guide our city’s future, creating inclusive, sustainable, and prosperous neighborhoods. We envision an equitable San Francisco where everyone thrives—a welcoming city that honors diverse cultures, provides secure housing, strengthens environmental resilience, and drives economic stability for current and future generations.

About PermitSF

PermitSF is San Francisco’s citywide permitting transformation initiative. The team partners across departments to simplify permitting, improve the customer experience, modernize business processes, and expand integrated online permitting services through the PermitSF Portal. The initiative is working to make permitting easier, more cost-effective, transparent, predictable, and efficient for residents, businesses, property owners, applicants, and City staff through a customer-centered, unified approach supported by accountable performance management and modern technology.

Job Description

Under the general direction of the PermitSF Portal Program Director, the 1053 Content Designer & User Researcher supports the end-to-end design and improvement of PermitSF services. The position plans and conducts user research, translates evidence into clear and accessible content and service recommendations, and helps ensure that public-facing permitting experiences are understandable, usable, and responsive to the needs of applicants and City staff.

This position works across the full implementation lifecycle—from discovery and future-state design through configuration, testing, launch, stabilization, and continuous improvement. The Content Designer & User Researcher collaborates with customers, permit staff, implementation and configuration teams, communications staff, policy and legal partners, subject-matter experts, and the PermitSF platform vendor to identify user needs, simplify complex requirements, and shape consistent end-to-end experiences across permit types.

The position produces plain-language content, research plans and findings, journey maps, service blueprints, prototypes, and structured recommendations that inform business-process, configuration, product, and launch decisions. Consistent with the senior level of the 1053 classification, the incumbent works under general direction, exercises independent judgment, leads complex deliverables, and communicates evidence-based recommendations to cross-functional stakeholders.

The successful candidate will have a positive, solution-oriented mindset, embrace hard work and challenges with resilience, focus on solutions rather than problems, and contribute constructive energy to the team. They will work collaboratively across technical and non-technical teams, navigate competing priorities, and develop practical, evidence-based solutions that improve the user experience.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

Essential duties of the position include but are not limited to the following:

• Plan and conduct user research with applicants, residents, businesses, permit staff, and other users during discovery, design, testing, launch, and continuous improvement.
• Select and apply appropriate qualitative and quantitative research methods, including interviews, contextual inquiry, usability testing, surveys, and facilitated feedback sessions.
• Synthesize research findings to identify user needs, current-state pain points, workflow gaps, accessibility barriers, and opportunities for technology or business-process improvement.
• Create and maintain service blueprints, journey maps, process maps, content models, prototypes, and related artifacts that describe the end-to-end applicant and staff experience.
• Design, write, edit, and govern clear, concise, accessible, and plain-language content for online forms, instructions, eligibility questions, notifications, help text, confirmation messages, and related public-facing services.
• Analyze and translate complex legal, policy, technical, and operational requirements into content, functional requirements, and user interaction recommendations that users can understand and act on.
• Advise implementation and configuration leads on how workflow, form, naming, notification, and business-rule decisions will affect the applicant and staff experience.
• Translate research evidence and customer pain points into prioritized recommendations, acceptance criteria, user stories, and product feature requests for PermitSF leadership and the platform vendor.
• Facilitate content-design critiques, co-design sessions, workshops, and cross-functional reviews to resolve conflicting requirements and secure clear, implementable decisions.
• Plan and facilitate soft launches and guided first-use sessions with selected customers; collect real-time feedback and assess whether services are ready for broader release.
• Identify and document content defects, usability issues, bugs, and configuration problems found through research and launch activities; coordinate resolution and retesting with the appropriate teams.
• Partner with communications and web-content teams on website updates, launch information, and customer communications, while maintaining consistency with PermitSF content standards, voice, and tone.
• Maintain organized research records, content inventories, decision logs, reusable patterns, findings, and recommendations in accordance with privacy, accessibility, and program-governance requirements.
• Analyze customer feedback, staff reports, support trends, analytics, and operational data to recommend and evaluate improvements to PermitSF systems, business processes, and active digital services.
• Communicate research findings, risks, trade-offs, and recommendations clearly to managers, frontline staff, technical teams, vendors, executives, and other stakeholders.
• Perform other class-appropriate duties and special assignments necessary to advance PermitSF’s citywide permitting-transformation objectives.

Qualifications

Education:

An associate degree in business administration, public administration, information systems, economics, finance, computer science, UX/UI design or a closely related field from an accredited college or university OR its equivalent in terms of total course credits/units [i.e., at least sixty (60) semester or ninety (90) quarter credits/units with a minimum of twenty (20) semester or thirty (30) quarter credits/units in one of the fields above or a closely-related field].

Experience:

Three (3) years in the information systems field, including system analysis, business process design, development and implementation of business application solutions or IT project management.

Substitution:

One year of additional experience as described above may be substituted for the required degree. Completion of the 1010 Information Systems Trainee Program may be substituted for the required degree.

Applicants must meet the minimum qualifications requirement by the final filing date unless otherwise noted.

Desirable Qualification

Any stated desirable qualifications may be considered at the end of the selection process when candidates are referred for hiring.

• Experience designing content for complex digital services, forms, transactional workflows, or government services.
• Experience applying UX writing, editing, and information-architecture skills to simplify complex legal, policy, operational, and technical requirements while maintaining accuracy.
• Experience planning and conducting user research with varied audiences and applying findings to content, service, process, product, and system configuration decisions.
• Experience creating journey maps, service blueprints, process maps, content models, prototypes, research reports, user stories, and acceptance criteria.
• Experience applying digital accessibility standards and inclusive design practices to forms, content, and end-to-end service experiences.
• Experience facilitating workshops, co-design sessions, usability tests, and cross-functional reviews with technical teams, policy, legal, communications, operations, and subject-matter experts.
• Ability to identify and analyze whether user-facing problems arise from content, processes, policies, system configuration, technology, training, or a combination of factors.
• Experience working in agile or iterative environments and collaborating with designers, analysts, developers, vendors, and operational teams through launch and continuous improvement.
• Experience with permitting, licensing, regulatory, civic technology, or other complex public services.

Verification:

Please make sure it is clear in your application exactly how you meet the minimum qualifications. Applicants will be required to submit verification of qualifying education and experience during the recruitment and selection process. For information on how to verify experience and/or education requirements, including verifying foreign education credits or degree equivalency, please visit Verification of Experience and/or Education.

Note

Falsifying one's education training, or work experience or attempted deception on the application may result in disqualification for this and future job opportunities with the City and County of San Francisco.

Additional Information

Selection Procedures

The selection process will include evaluation of applications in relation to minimum requirements and assessment of candidates’ job-related knowledge, skills and abilities. Depending on the number of applicants, the Department may establish and implement additional screening mechanisms to evaluate candidate qualifications. This typically includes an oral interview and/or a written or performance exercise.

If this becomes necessary, only those applicants whose qualifications most closely meet the Department needs will be invited to continue in the selection process. Applicants meeting the minimum requirements are not guaranteed advancement in the selection process.

How to Apply

Applications for City and County of San Francisco jobs are only accepted through an online process. Submit your application through this job ad.

1. Select the “Apply Now" button and follow instructions on the screen.

Applicants may be contacted by email about this recruitment and, therefore, it is their responsibility to ensure that their registered email address is accurate and kept up-to-date. Also, applicants must ensure that email from CCSF is not blocked on their computer by a spam filter. To prevent blocking, applicants should set up their email to accept CCSF mail from the following addresses (@sfgov.org, @sfdpw.org, @sfport.com, @flysfo.com, @sfwater.org, @sfdph.org, @asianart.org, @sfmta.com, @sfpl.org, @dcyf.org, @first5sf.org, @famsf.org, @ccsf.edu, @smartalerts.info, and @smartrecruiters.com).

Applicants will receive a confirmation email that their online application has been received in response to every announcement for which they file. Applicants should retain this confirmation email for their records. Failure to receive this email means that the online application was not submitted or received.

What else should I know?

Additional Information Regarding Employment with the City and County of San Francisco:

• Information About The Hiring Process
• Conviction History
• Employee Benefits Overview
• Equal Employment Opportunity
• Disaster Service Worker
• ADA Accommodation
• Veterans Preference
• Right to Work
• Copies of Application Documents
• Diversity Statement

Questions: If you have any questions regarding this recruitment or application process, please contact the exam analyst, Zoey Feng, by telephone at 628-652-7628, or by email at yajian.feng@sfgov.org.

The City and County of San Francisco encourages women, minorities and persons with disabilities to apply. Applicants will be considered regardless of their sex, race, age, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition (associated with cancer, a history of cancer, or genetic characteristics), HIV/AIDS status, genetic information, marital status, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, military and veteran status, or other protected category under the law.