Carrera
Job Search for Army National Guard
Overview
As the Lead Product Designer and Consultant at VMware’s Tanzu Labs, I led the design of Carrera, a job board web application developed in partnership with the U.S. Army Software Factory.
Our mission was to create a modern, user-friendly platform that helps Army National Guard soldiers discover and apply for active duty positions relevant to their skills and career goals. Carrera represented a key step in modernizing how soldiers engage with their career opportunities within the military.
Problem
The Army’s existing system, Tour of Duty, was outdated, unintuitive, and difficult to access — creating unnecessary friction in an already complex process.
Key challenges included:
Outdated interface: The system was not optimized for modern web usability or responsive design.
Limited search capabilities: Soldiers had difficulty filtering opportunities relevant to their career track.
Low accessibility: The platform was cumbersome to navigate and rarely updated.
As a result, many soldiers missed opportunities to apply for the positions that best fit their experience and career aspirations.
Solution
We designed Carrera, a modern web application built to simplify and streamline the job discovery experience for Army National Guard soldiers.
Key features included:
Smart Filtering & Search: Soldiers could quickly refine job results based on rank, specialty, and location.
Save & Alerts: Users could bookmark positions or receive notifications when similar roles opened.
Clean, modern interface: A simple, accessible layout made it easy to browse and compare opportunities.
Responsive design: Optimized for both desktop and mobile users to accommodate diverse device access.
The result was a mission-driven platform that not only modernized the experience but also improved trust and engagement with digital Army systems.
Design Process
Research & Discovery
We began by conducting user and market research to understand soldiers’ workflows and frustrations.
User interviews: Conducted sessions with Army National Guard soldiers to uncover how they currently search for and apply to positions.
Journey mapping: Documented user pain points across the application lifecycle, from discovery to submission.
Market research: Evaluated modern civilian job board experiences (LinkedIn, Indeed, USAJobs) to identify usable patterns adaptable to the military context.
These insights formed the foundation for our information architecture and feature prioritization.
Wireframing & Ideation
Our design team held several brainstorming and sketching workshops to explore layout and interaction concepts.
Goals during this stage:
Simplify the search and application flow
Visualize key actions like “Save” and “Apply”
Reduce cognitive load through clear hierarchy and labels
I led the wireframing in Figma, exploring multiple low-fidelity concepts that we refined in collaboration with product and engineering teams.
High-Fidelity Design & Prototyping
We evolved selected wireframes into high-fidelity mockups in Figma, ensuring alignment with Army Software Factory’s visual language and accessibility standards.
The design emphasized clarity, usability, and scalability for future features.
We developed a clickable prototype to simulate real user interactions, validating flows before development.
Testing & Iteration
We conducted multiple rounds of usability testing, both in-person and remotely, with a diverse group of Army National Guard members.
Key learnings from testing:
Users valued speed and clarity — removing unnecessary form fields improved task completion rates.
The Save Positions feature significantly increased re-engagement.
Alerts created a sense of trust and empowerment by keeping soldiers informed.
We iterated quickly, incorporating feedback into each sprint using an agile, user-centered process.
Results
Carrera quickly became one of the most successful platforms launched by the Army Software Factory.
Key Outcomes:
🚀 27,460 unique users from launch through April 2023 — the highest of any Army Software Factory platform at that time.
📈 30,000+ total users to date, with an average of 426 weekly users.
💼 93 applicants per week and 54 applicants per job on average — a significant improvement over the legacy Tour of Duty system.
✅ Enhanced usability and accessibility, empowering soldiers to find and apply for opportunities faster and more confidently.
Carrera continues to serve as a model for digital transformation in military software, proving the value of user-centered design in government and defense applications.
Reflection
This project reinforced the importance of human-centered design in complex, high-stakes environments.
Designing for military users taught me to:
Balance security, usability, and policy constraints
Simplify complex workflows into intuitive, mission-critical experiences
Communicate design rationale across multidisciplinary teams of civilians and service members
Carrera demonstrated that when soldiers are given modern, well-designed tools, they can focus more on their mission — not on navigating outdated systems.