[Hiring] Principal Design Engineer @Microsoft

Role Description

XBOX is seeking a Principal Design Engineer to shape developer and creator tools for game developers and players. Working at the intersection of design and engineering, you’ll turn ambitious ideas into functional prototypes, reusable systems, and polished product experiences that help people create, collaborate, and play.

As part of XBOX Design, you’ll partner with designers, researchers, product managers, and engineers to guide experiences from early exploration through production. This is a hands-on technical leadership role combining exceptional interaction and visual design judgment with deep front-end engineering expertise. You’ll navigate ambiguity, influence direction across teams, and explore how AI can enable new tools and experiences for creators and players.

Responsibilities

• Build and ship high-quality experiences.
• Write and review front-end code that balances design craft with accessibility, performance, security, and maintainability.
• Lead design quality reviews and own design ship-readiness approval for your areas in partnership with Engineering and Product.
• Make ideas tangible.
• Build interactive prototypes and proofs of concept to explore interaction models, test assumptions, evaluate feasibility, and inform product direction.
• Choose the right fidelity for each question, distinguishing exploratory code from production-ready solutions.
• Shape direction and drive delivery.
• Partner with Design, Research, Product, and Engineering to define problems, scope work, and navigate dependencies and tradeoffs.
• Communicate a compelling product story, influence senior stakeholders, and deliver against shared commitments with autonomy and accountability.
• Build reusable systems and tools.
• Evolve components, interaction patterns, tooling, and documentation that improve consistency and design-to-code workflows across teams.
• Connect related efforts and build on existing foundations.
• Provide technical leadership and mentorship.
• Raise the quality of design and engineering through thoughtful reviews, shared practices, and mentorship.
• Influence work beyond your immediate product area while remaining hands-on.

Qualifications

• Master's Degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Graphic Design, Product Design, Visual Design, Human Computer Interaction, or related field AND 4+ years experience working in product or service design and/or shipping production code
• OR Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Graphic Design, Product Design, Visual Design, Human Computer Interaction, or related field AND 6+ years experience working in product or service design and/or shipping production code
• OR 8+ years experience working in product or service design and/or shipping production code OR equivalent experience

Preferred Qualifications

• Portfolio demonstrating hands-on design engineering contributions, design craft, and technical decision-making.
• Experience working with AI and large language models.
• Experience building games, developer tools, or tools for game creators or 3D.
• Experience contributing to or using an established design system.
• Experience with React, TypeScript, and supporting tools such as Jest, Storybook, and ESLint.

Benefits

• The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $142,800 - $274,800 per year.
• Different range applicable to specific work locations, within the San Francisco Bay area and New York City metropolitan area, is USD $188,000 - $304,200 per year.
• Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation.

Company Description

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, citizenship, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, immigration status, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran or military status, race, ethnicity, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable local laws, regulations and ordinances.

If you need assistance with religious accommodations and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations.