Principal Product Designer - CTJ - Secret

Responsibilities

Lead human-centered design strategy and execution for defense industrial base customers, translating complex needs into accessible and impactful experiences. Collaborate with multidisciplinary teams to integrate AI-powered solutions while ensuring security, compliance, and high design quality.

Requirements

Requires a Bachelor's degree with 8+ years of experience or a Master's degree with 6+ years of experience in product or service design. Candidates must possess an active U.S. Government Secret Security Clearance and be U.S. citizens.

Skills

• Product Design
• Human-centered Design
• Design Strategy
• Interaction Design
• Prototyping
• User Research
• AI-enabled Design Tools
• Systems Thinking
• Figma
• Accessibility Standards
• Stakeholder Management
• Mentoring
• Problem Framing
• Journey Mapping
• Usability Evaluation
• Enterprise Application Design

About this role

Overview
Microsoft empowers every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. For our defense industrial base customers, that means delivering trusted, intuitive solutions that help people navigate complex workflows, make informed decisions, and accomplish critical work. 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.
You will combine a foundation in human-centered design with hands-on fluency in current AI-enabled design tools and workflows. You will use research, problem framing, co-design, prototyping, and iterative validation to ensure teams solve the right problems, not simply produce solutions faster. You will also help shape AI-powered experiences that give people appropriate understanding, control, and confidence.This role requires adaptability in a field where tools and capabilities evolve continuously. The ideal candidate actively explores emerging approaches, evaluates their practical value, and helps teams adopt better ways of working without compromising customer trust, accessibility, security, or design quality.
As a design leader, you will set direction across complex initiatives, influence multidisciplinary partners, mentor designers, and remain hands-on where it matters most. You will work closely with customers and colleagues across product, engineering, research, and customer-facing teams to deliver solutions grounded in real needs and validated through evidence.
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. Our team prides itself on embracing a growth mindset, inspiring excellence, and encouraging everyone to share their unique viewpoints and be their authentic selves. Join us and help create life-changing innovations that impact billions around the world!

Responsibilities
Lead design strategy and execution. Own design direction across complex customer engagements and related initiatives, connecting customer needs, business goals, and technical constraints to a coherent experience vision.
Champion human-centered design. Lead discovery, research synthesis, problem framing, journey mapping, co-design, prototyping, and usability evaluation. Use evidence to challenge assumptions, prioritize opportunities, and guide decisions throughout delivery.
Understand defense industrial base customers. Develop a deep understanding of customer roles, workflows, operating environments, and constraints. Translate complex requirements into usable solutions in partnership with technical, security, and compliance stakeholders.
Apply AI tools thoughtfully. Integrate current AI-enabled tools into research synthesis, ideation, interaction design, prototyping, and design-to-development workflows. Validate generated outputs and use only tools and data practices approved for the relevant environment.
Design effective AI-powered experiences. Help teams address user control, transparency, trust, uncertainty, and recovery when incorporating AI into customer workflows.
Adapt and improve continuously. Evaluate emerging tools and capabilities, distinguish meaningful advances from novelty, and share repeatable practices that improve quality and accelerate learning.
Create cohesive, accessible experiences. Develop interaction patterns, prototypes, and reusable components that align with Microsoft design systems and accessibility standards while meeting customer needs.
Influence across disciplines. Align customers, product managers, engineers, researchers, and leadership around design priorities. Communicate design rationale clearly, resolve ambiguity, and guide trade-offs through evidence and sound judgment.
Raise the design quality bar. Lead constructive critiques, mentor designers, and establish practices that help teams deliver consistently strong work. Provide leadership through expertise and influence, whether or not you have direct reports.
Measure outcomes. Define success criteria with partners and use customer feedback, usability findings, and adoption signals to evaluate results and guide improvements.
Other:
You will embody our culture and values

Qualifications
Required/Minimum 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 (e.g., demonstrated experience working in product or service design or using design thinking to solve problems).
Other Requirements:
Security Clearance Requirements: Candidates must be able to meet Microsoft, customer and/or government security screening requirements as required for this role. These requirements include, but are not limited to the following specialized security screenings:
The successful candidate must have an active U.S. Government Secret Security Clearance. Ability to meet Microsoft, customer and/or government security screening requirements are required for this role. Failure to maintain or obtain the appropriate clearance and/or customer screening requirements may result in employment action up to and including termination.

Clearance Veri...

About Microsoft

Software Development · 10,001+ employees · headquartered in Redmond, Washington