Principal Product Designer

Microsoft is seeking a Principal Product Designer to lead human-centered design work for defense industrial base customers. In this onsite role in the United States, you will translate complex needs into experiences that are clear, accessible, and impactful, while strengthening design quality across the full path from discovery to delivery.

You will set design direction across complex engagements and related initiatives, connecting customer needs, business goals, and technical constraints into a shared experience vision. The position also calls for thoughtful use of AI-enabled design tools, with careful validation and adherence to approved environments and practices.

What you’ll do

• Lead design strategy and execution by owning design direction across complex customer engagements and initiatives, aligning customer needs, business goals, and technical constraints.
• Champion human-centered design through discovery, research synthesis, problem framing, journey mapping, co-design, prototyping, and usability evaluation, using evidence to guide decisions.
• Build deep understanding of defense industrial base customers, translating customer roles, workflows, operating environments, and constraints into usable solutions in partnership with technical, security, and compliance stakeholders.
• Apply AI tools thoughtfully by integrating AI-enabled tools into research synthesis, ideation, interaction design, prototyping, and design-to-development workflows, validating outputs and using only tools and data practices approved for the environment.
• Design effective AI-powered experiences with attention to user control, transparency, trust, uncertainty, and recovery when AI is incorporated into customer workflows.
• Adapt and improve continuously by evaluating emerging tools and capabilities, distinguishing meaningful advances from novelty, and sharing repeatable practices to improve quality and accelerate learning.
• Create cohesive, accessible experiences by developing interaction patterns, prototypes, and reusable components that align with Microsoft design systems and accessibility standards while meeting customer needs.
• Influence across disciplines by aligning customers, product managers, engineers, researchers, and leadership around design priorities, communicating rationale, resolving ambiguity, and guiding trade-offs using evidence.
• Raise the design quality bar through constructive critiques, mentoring designers, and establishing practices that help teams deliver consistently strong work, with leadership driven by expertise and influence.
• Measure outcomes by defining success criteria with partners and evaluating results using customer feedback, usability findings, and adoption signals.

What you’ll need

• Education and experience option 1: A Master’s Degree in Industrial Design, Product Design, Human Computer Interaction, User Experience, Interaction Design, or a related field AND 6+ years of experience working in product or service design.
• Education and experience option 2: A Bachelor’s Degree in one of the listed fields AND 8+ years of experience working in product or service design.
• OR equivalent experience (for example, demonstrated experience working in product or service design or using design thinking to solve problems).
• Active U.S. Government Secret Security Clearance.
• Ability to meet Microsoft, customer, and/or government security screening requirements for the role.
• Successful verification of the stated security clearance to meet federal government customer requirements, including providing clearance verification information prior to offer.
• Requirement to pass the Microsoft Cloud background check upon hire or transfer and every two years thereafter.
• Verification of U.S. citizenship, required due to citizenship-based legal restrictions, verified via a valid passport, or other approved documents, or verified U.S. government clearance.

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 for ideation, prototyping, or other design activities, including evaluating output quality and limitations.
• A portfolio (or equivalent) demonstrating interaction design, systems thinking, design craft, and the reasoning behind consequential design decisions, with work samples appropriate to share and not containing classified or restricted information.
• 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 and helping others adopt effective new practices.
• Advanced proficiency in Figma or comparable tools, including interactive prototyping, component libraries, and design systems.
• Experience designing for accessibility within security, privacy, and compliance constraints.
• Experience mentoring designers and improving design practices across multidisciplinary teams.

Compensation: USD 142,800 - 304,200 per year.