Principal Design & Research Head

Principal Design & Research Head

United States, Washington, Redmond

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Matching skills

Education

Job description

Company and benefits

Job number

200044829

Date posted

Nov 06, 2026

Work site

3 days / week in-office

Travel

Less than 25%

Profession

Design & Creative

Discipline

Product Design

Role type

People Manager

Employment type

Full-Time

Overview

Do you want to be at the heart of Microsoft’s digital and cultural transformation? Are you passionate about envisioning the future workplace and being an industry leader? As part of Microsoft’s Employee Experience organization, our UX Studio is responsible for many of the experiences that our internal Microsoft Employees use each day. We are a vibrant community of talented and passionate UXers that are customer-obsessed with diverse expertise in UX design, UX research, and content management. We share core values around curiosity, humility, inclusion, and creativity.

We are seeking to hire a Principal Design & Research Head. This role will lead a team of researchers and designers within the Employee Experience space, working closely with Design, Engineering, Product, and Business Leadership to envision and deliver a future Microsoft workplace that enables innovative, creative, and intelligent employee experiences across both digital and physical environments.

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 a team of researchers, designers and content writers who conduct diverse product research and design activities, spanning generative to evaluative research, and end-to-end design processes.

Foster and facilitate agile research and design practices and methodologies.

Drive role acceleration with AI for user experience research, design and content across the product development lifecycle.

Work closely with key stakeholders across Engineering, Product, and Business Partners to establish trust and alignment for maximum research and design influence.

Partner with other Research and Design Leads to enhance the team’s ability to plan, execute, analyze, synthesize insights, and deliver high-quality design solutions.

Understand the competitive landscape and innovations in both research and design.

Provide mentorship and career growth to a diverse set of multi-disciplinary user researchers and designers.

Foster a diverse and inclusive team environment that empowers team members to do their best work.

Qualifications

Required/minimum 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).

3+ years people management experience.

Additional or preferred qualifications

Master'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 Bachelor's Degree in Industrial Design, Product Design, Human Computer Interaction, User Experience, Interaction Design, or related field AND 12+ 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).

Drive role acceleration with AI for user experience research, design and content across the product development lifecycle.

Work closely with key stakeholders across Engineering, Product, and Business Partners to establish trust and alignment for maximum research and design influence.

5+ years people management experience.

6+ years experience shipping products, services, or games and/or delivering to customers as a result of an end-to-end design process.

Well-established portfolio of research and design techniques, including ethnography, field studies, interviews, usability studies, concept validation, user journey mapping, surveys, scorecards, competitive analysis, wireframing, prototyping, and visual design.

Deep knowledge of designing experiences across endpoints ad informing the development of V1 platforms and products.

Influential leader who can develop key partnerships with stakeholders and deliver a strategic research and design roadmap across multiple business areas.

Proven track record of translating insights into product and design strategy, and the ability to define success outcomes for those experiences which are tracked and measured by research and design metrics.

Product Design M5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $142,800 - $274,800 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 $188,000 - $304,200 per year.

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