Purpose: To identify and analyze differences in the tasks, knowledge, and social features of the work of civil servants of the Superior Court of Justice, and, secondarily, to verify the factorial, convergent, predictive, and discriminative validity of the Work Design Questionnaire (WDQ) in the Brazilian Judiciary context. Originality/value: With the WDQ's development, the work design became the subject of further studies all around the world. Also, in Brazil, since its translation and adaptation, this variable has caused great repercussions in people management, becoming the first study within the scope of the Brazilian Judiciary. Design/methodology/approach: Through a survey sent to 2,898 civil servants, 895 responses were obtained and subjected to descriptive statistical analysis, confirmatory factorial analysis, reliability analysis, Kendall's tau correlation analysis, and the Kruskal-Wallis test. Findings: The most indicated work feature was social support, and the least indicated was interaction outside the organization. Special knowledge was most required from professionals with higher education. For the men, there were more problem solving, specialized knowledge, and decision-making autonomy in their work. Civil servants who work in judicial activities claimed to have more meaningful tasks. Managers claimed to have less autonomy in planning their tasks, as all other civil servants stated that their work has a more definite beginning, middle, and end. In a public body of great size and complexity, work features are differentiated by their sociodemographic and functional variables, requiring customization in the management practices of people and organizational policies. KEYWORDS Work design. Work Design Questionnaire. Public sector. Judiciary. Superior Court of Justice. Objetivo: Identificar e analisar diferencas nas caracteristicas da tarefa, do conhecimento e sociais no trabalho de servidores do Superior Tribunal de Justica (STJ), e, secundariamente, verificar a validade fatorial, convergente, preditiva e discriminante do Work Design Questionnaire (WDQ) no contexto do Poder Judiciario brasileiro. Originalidade/valor: Com o desenvolvimento do WDQ, o desenho do trabalho passou a ser ainda mais estudado mundialmente. Tambem no Brasil, desde sua traducao e adaptacao, essa variavel vem apresentando grande repercussao na gestao de pessoas, sendo este o primeiro estudo no ambito do Poder Judiciario brasileiro. Design/metodologia/abordagem: Por meio de survey encaminhado aos 2.898 servidores, obtiveram-se 895 respostas, que foram submetidas a analise de estatisticas descritivas, analise fatorial confirmatoria, analise de confiabilidade, analise de correlacao de Kendall-tau e teste Kruskal-Wallis. Resultados: A caracteristica do trabalho mais reconhecida foi o suporte social, enquanto a menor foi a interacao fora da organizacao. Conhecimentos especializados sao mais requeridos de profissionais de nivel superior. No trabalho dos homens, ha mais resolucao de problemas, conhecimentos mais especializadas e autonomia na tomada de decisao. Servidores da area finalistica afirmaram exercer tarefas com mais significado. Gestores consideraram ter menos autonomia para planejar suas tarefas, enquanto os demais servidores avaliam que seus trabalhos tem inicio, meio e fim mais bem definidos. Num orgao publico de grande porte e complexidade, as caracteristicas dos trabalhos se diferenciam em funcao de variaveis sociodemograficas e funcionais, exigindo-se customizacoes nas praticas de gestao de pessoas e nas politicas organizacionais. PALAVRAS-CHAVE Desenho do trabalho. Work Design Questionnaire. Setor publico. Poder Judiciario. Superior Tribunal de Justica.