Principal Design Director

If you’re passionate about technology, have a knack for creative ideas, and lead with a growth mindset, we want to hear from you. 

The Microsoft AI Design & Research team is a creative community of designers and researchers on a mission to create and deliver holistic customer experiences while imagining the future of web experiences. Between Copilot, MSN, Edge, Bing, and apps, we’re creating end to end web experiences from shopping, to search, to ads, news, sports, and gaming. Our diverse team works collaboratively to create products and ideas that empower us to move fast to build seamless and delightful experiences for billions of customers worldwide. Join us!   

We are seeking a Principal Design Director with strong consumer product design experience to help us with the next wave of news experiences. For this role we’re looking for a leader with both strong design skills and people management skills; you should have superb visual and interaction design skills, experience managing 12 – 20 individual contributors and managers, be comfortable with ambiguity involved in inventing v1 experiences. You will lead your team to concept, prototype and evangelize new customer experiences as well as help evolve our design system, working across teams to bring design coherence to our framework and create beautiful, inclusive, and accessible experiences that customers love. 

While our preferred location for this position is Redmond, WA, we are open to candidates based anywhere in the United States.

Required Qualifications 

• Bachelor's Degree in Industrial Design, Product Design, Human Computer Interaction, or related field AND 9+ years experience working in product or service design 

• OR Master's Degree in Industrial Design, Product Design, Human Computer Interaction, or related field AND 7+ years experience working in product or service design 

• OR equivalent experience (e.g., experience using design thinking to solve problems). 

• 5+ years people management experience 

Preferred Qualifications

• Demonstrated sense of Interaction Design attuned to the fundamentals of user experience, including accessibility and inclusive design 

• Strong Visual Design skills 

• Prior experience designing news content preferred 

• Excellent communication and presentation / storytelling skills, with the ability to energize teams and advocate for your ideas 

• Experience designing in Figma 

Resume must include a link to design portfolio 

Product Design M6 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $161,600 - $286,200 per year. There is a different range applicable to specific work locations, within the San Francisco Bay area and New York City metropolitan area, and the base pay range for this role in those locations is USD $209,600 - $314,400 per year.

Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here:

Microsoft will accept applications for the role until January 15, 2025. 

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• Lead a team of designers, creating clarity, generating energy and delivering results 

• Drive product experience strategy, interaction design, creative direction and craftsmanship for a v1 product 

• Drive cross-team collaborations between your team and other designers, researchers, product managers, product planners, and developers from early product stages to implementation 

• Understand the behaviors, motivations, and needs of our customers to develop relevant and impactful experiences 

• Contribute to strategic product planning via experience roadmaps 

• Propose creative solutions to complex user experience journeys, drawing on your ability to map end-to-end experiences 

• Identify new opportunities and generate innovative ideas to improve our processes, products, and culture, influencing design direction and research methodologies