Principal Product Designer

The X3 Strategy and Ops team within E+D is looking for a Principal Product Designer to help us inform and guide future AI initiatives within M365 and Copilot. S+O is a multi-disciplinary team composed of: UX Strategists, Researchers, Designers, UX Engineers, Storytellers, and PMs. We are take a horizontal, humanity-centered approach to developing UX perspectives on emerging challenges  at the intersection of Business, Experience & Technology. Our work crosses product silos in the form of thought leadership, creation of best practices, and what is sometimes referred to as incubation or envisioning. As we build our evidence-based, humanity-centered process, we embrace a flexible, multi-disciplinary approach to drive innovation within M365, hypothesizing, experimenting, prototyping, and refining to build perspective around near future development opportunities for our org. 

The S+O design team is new and being built as a partner team to existing incubation groups in strategy, research, UX engineering, and, more broadly, engineering and AI thought leadership teams within Microsoft. As strategists explore and engineers develop the potential of new capabilities in AI, we will experiment and design those capabilities into our products 1-2 years before they ship. We will inform leadership decision making that drives product-level development that improves and enriches the workflows of our customers. We’ll work with the familiar UX design tools to do it…Figma, wireframes, prototypes, and constant sharing and building on the ideas of others in the team. Research, hypothesize, design, prototype, learn, refine, repeat.

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.

Responsibilities

• Lead open communication with cross-disciplinary and cross-product teams to build horizontal impact across M365 products. 
• Work with the Design Director to lead exploration into opportunity spaces in collaboration with other designers and peers in other disciplines. 
• Envision near-future user flows with a strong point of view based on new and existing research, peer and executive feedback, and design expertise. 
• Lead by example within the design team as a strong individual contributor. 
• Use design to ask questions, solve problems, and provoke discussion that informs executive decision making. 
• Create wireframes, flows, high fidelity mockups, and prototypes of new experiences across multiple Microsoft products. 
• Create visual design solutions loosely based on the design system or original solutions based on new emerging experiences. 

Qualifications

Required Qualifications: 

• 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 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 equivalent experience (e.g., demonstrated experience working in product or service design or using design thinking to solve problems)

Preferred Qualifications: 

• Interest in LLMs, generative AI, and the future of work 

• Experience forming visions around new areas of opportunity and building support for design directions

• Experience with common UI design tools
• Broad UX/UI design knowledge/experience, with specialization in one or more of the following areas: Visual Design, Prototyping (in pixels or code), Motion design for interaction, AI-specific UX/UI design, Design for mobile, and Research-based design
• Ability to take action and begin work when faced with a loosely defined problem
• Strong verbal and visual communication

Product Design IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $137,600 - $267,000 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 $180,400 - $294,000 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 November 18, 2024. 

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances.  We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application or the recruiting process, please send a request via the Accommodation request form.

Benefits/perks listed below may vary depending on the nature of your employment with Microsoft and the country where you work.