Principal Design Director

We’re a small, friendly, diverse and a fast-moving creative team, supporting one another to do the best work of our lives, always looking to break new ground with an unshakeable dedication to the user. We are proud of what we build, how we build it, and that our products define the AI era while earning the trust of our users. We prioritize quality, meaningful innovation and polish, and always root our decisions in research and evidence. We ship regularly, so your work will have real and immediate impact.  
 

Our Core Values: 

• Quality. We only deliver category-defining products that delight with their ease of use, guaranteed reliability, and beautiful, coherent design.    
• Simplicity. We don’t overcomplicate. Less is more, always.    
• Safety & Security. The highest standards of security, safety and responsibility are non-negotiable across all our business areas.    
• Evaluation. We pay close attention to signals and aren’t afraid to change course when data and our experience tells us to. We are also careful with our metrics, focusing on delivering long-term sustainable value (rather than short-term KPIs).  
• Kindness. Kindness is at the heart of our org and how we conduct ourselves. We care for, and support and respect one another, beginning again and learning every day. 

We are seeking a Principal Design Director to join our team, bringing a solid consumer and enterprise product design experience to help us with the next wave of news experiences. For this role we’re looking for a leader with solid design skills, business skills and people management skills; you should have superb visual and interaction design skills, experience managing 15-20 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.

In addition to setting vision and direction, the ideal candidate is a maker who can craft high quality design work at a fast pace within our design principles. 

Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. As employees we come together with a growth mindset, innovate to empower others, and collaborate to realize our shared goals. Each day we build on our values of respect, integrity, and accountability to create a culture of inclusion where everyone can thrive at work and beyond.

Required Qualifcations:

• Master's Degree in Industrial Design, Product Design, Human Computer Interaction, User Experience, Interaction Design, or related field AND 7+ 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 9+ years experience working in product or service design
  • OR equivalent experience (e.g., demonstrated experience working in product or service design or using design thinking to solve problems).
• 5+ years people management experience.
• Experience leading technical design teams and distilling complexities to create simple and beautiful design solutions.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Demonstrated sense of Interaction Design attuned to the fundamentals of user experience, including accessibility and inclusive design.
  
• Solid Visual Design skills.
  
• Prior experience designing news content.
  
• 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 $163,000 - $296,400 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 $220,800 - $331,200 per year.

Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here: https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-corporate-pay

Microsoft will accept applications for the role until September 30, 2025.

#MicrosoftAI

• 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.