[Hiring] Principal Product Designer @Microsoft

Role Description

We are seeking a Principal Product Designer to lead human-centered design efforts supporting Microsoft’s defense industrial base customers. In this role, you will translate complex customer needs into clear, accessible, and impactful experiences. You will shape design strategy, lead work from discovery through delivery, and bring a high standard of craft to solutions that connect customer priorities with Microsoft technologies.

• Combine a foundation in human-centered design with hands-on fluency in current AI-enabled design tools and workflows.
• Use research, problem framing, co-design, prototyping, and iterative validation to ensure teams solve the right problems.
• Help shape AI-powered experiences that give people appropriate understanding, control, and confidence.
• Set direction across complex initiatives, influence multidisciplinary partners, mentor designers, and remain hands-on where it matters most.
• Work closely with customers and colleagues across product, engineering, research, and customer-facing teams.

Responsibilities

• Lead design strategy and execution.
• Own design direction across complex customer engagements and related initiatives.
• Champion human-centered design.
• Lead discovery, research synthesis, problem framing, journey mapping, co-design, prototyping, and usability evaluation.
• Develop a deep understanding of customer roles, workflows, operating environments, and constraints.
• Integrate current AI-enabled tools into research synthesis, ideation, interaction design, prototyping, and design-to-development workflows.
• Help teams address user control, transparency, trust, uncertainty, and recovery when incorporating AI into customer workflows.
• Evaluate emerging tools and capabilities, distinguish meaningful advances from novelty.
• Develop interaction patterns, prototypes, and reusable components that align with Microsoft design systems and accessibility standards.
• Align customers, product managers, engineers, researchers, and leadership around design priorities.
• Lead constructive critiques, mentor designers, and establish practices that help teams deliver consistently strong work.
• Define success criteria with partners and use customer feedback, usability findings, and adoption signals to evaluate results.

Qualifications

• Master's Degree in Industrial Design, Product Design, Human Computer Interaction, User Experience, Interaction Design, or related field AND 6+ years experience working in product or service design OR
• Bachelor's Degree in Industrial Design, Product Design, Human Computer Interaction, User Experience, Interaction Design, or related field AND 8+ years experience working in product or service design OR equivalent experience.

Requirements

• Active U.S. Government Secret Security Clearance.
• Successful verification of the stated security clearance to meet federal government customer requirements.
• Verification of U.S. citizenship due to citizenship-based legal restrictions.

Additional or Preferred Qualifications

• Command of human-centered design methods, with evidence of using research and iterative evaluation to improve customer outcomes.
• Hands-on experience applying current AI-enabled design tools to ideation, prototyping, or other design activities.
• A portfolio or equivalent presentation demonstrating interaction design, systems thinking, design craft, and reasoning behind design decisions.
• Experience supporting defense industrial base customers, government organizations, or other highly regulated enterprises.
• Experience designing enterprise applications, complex workflows, or AI-powered products and services.
• Demonstrated ability to lead design across multiple related initiatives and influence stakeholders without direct authority.
• A track record of adapting to rapidly changing tools and technologies.
• Advanced proficiency in Figma or comparable tools.
• Experience designing for accessibility and working within security, privacy, and compliance constraints.
• Experience mentoring designers and improving design practices across multidisciplinary teams.

Benefits

• The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $142,800 - $274,800 per year.
• Base pay range for this role in the San Francisco Bay area and New York City metropolitan area is USD $188,000 - $304,200 per year.