Principal Product Designer

We are seeking a Principal Product Designer for the Workiva Platform. The ideal person should have a passionate interest and expert capabilities in the envisioning, discovery, design and development of engaging user experiences. This Principal Product Designer is expected to balance strategic thinking with hands-on design, ensuring the creation of high-quality user experiences that enhance both user satisfaction and business outcomes.
This role will be responsible for leading and shaping user experience strategy across multiple products. This role involves demonstrating mastery of design processes, mentoring design teams, collaborating with cross-functional departments, and ensuring the user experience aligns with business goals.
What You'll Do
User Discovery: Understands and empathizes with user needs and underlying requirements, drawing constraints to be designed for.

• Collaborates with the team to identify, define, and drive a product vision
• Responsible for investigating known and discovering unknown UX challenges
• Engages with users, subject-matter experts, and stakeholders to gather actionable feedback and reveal underlying problems.
• Works closely with product managers, other designers, developers, copywriters, and user researchers to fully understand and resolve issues, concerns, and problems that result in delivering high-quality product experiences
• Creates/employs user personas and utilizes those personas and behavior modeling to produce viable design ideas
• Fully understands the implications of work being done for addressing the needs and concerns of the larger customer base of Workiva and evolving business markets

Solution Design: Rapidly designs, iterates, and validates user experience solutions to meet user needs and constraints.

• Responsible for designing for both known and unknown UX solutions
• Understands ecosystem patterns but intuitively knows when to replicate or innovate
• Designs at the ecosystem level see their product as one of a whole
• Collaborates with team members and stakeholders to explore new approaches that will provide optimal solutions
• Facilitates discussions to move ideas from the abstract concept to an actionable design.
• Designs solutions that can be leveraged in products that meet a broad range of customer needs and requirements
• Demonstrates ideas to stakeholders through the use of tools such as concept models, sketches, wireframes and prototypes

Build, Measure, Learn: Creates prototypes to determine the success of a solution while continuing to iterate and improve the solution after launch.

• Identifies and articulates what success for the solution will look like
• Collaborates with the PM and research to create metrics to measure such
• Engages with users to determine value of design solution
• Deciphers feedback for rapid data-informed iteration of the solution
• Works with development team to deliver the resulting solution meeting user needs
• Tracks, follows-up and iterates on the delivered solution on a timely basis.

Mentoring & Advocacy: Serves as a coach and mentor to User Experience Designers and other members of the UX team while advocating for consistent and effective experiences.

• Gives critical feedback on designs of team members and offers advice on best practices of user experience design
• Looks for opportunities to level up individual designers and the entire team
• Drives implementation of consistent user experience design on product teams
• Sets a prime example of design mastery to be emulated and learned from by others

What You'll Need
Minimum Qualifications

• 10+ years of professional UX experience, shipping multiple successful products
• Undergraduate Degree or equivalent combination of education and experience in a related field
• A portfolio demonstrating expert design aptitude is required

Preferred Qualifications

• Demonstrated exceptional proficiency in user experience design to include lean user experience design, discovering innovative solutions, rapid prototyping and leadership
• Deep understanding of user-centered design principles, frameworks and methodologies, and experience applying them to real-world problems rooted in user insights and feedback throughout the product lifecycle
• Demonstrates a solid understanding of user experience principles and B2B research methodologies
• Mastery-level, user-centered design, visual design and systems thinking skills
• Strong communication, presentation, and interpersonal skills, with the ability to influence and build relationships with stakeholders at all levels
• Experience working in an Agile development environment
• Strong analytical skills, with the ability to use collected data and analytics to inform design decisions
• Mastery of Figma for design and prototyping
• Strong customer orientation, ability to dive deep, and strong problem-solving skills

Travel Requirements and Working Conditions

• Up to 25% travel
• Reliable internet access for any period of time working remotely, not in a Workiva office

How You'll Be Rewarded
• Salary range in the US: $177,000.00 - $284,000.00• A discretionary bonus typically paid annually
• Restricted Stock Units granted at time of hire
• 401(k) match and comprehensive employee benefits package
The salary range represents the low and high end of the salary range for this job in the US. Minimums and maximums may vary based on location. The actual salary offer will carefully consider a wide range of factors, including your skills, qualifications, experience and other relevant factors.
Workiva is an Equal Employment Opportunity and Affirmative Action Employer. We believe that great minds think differently. We value diversity of backgrounds, beliefs, and interests, and we recognize diversity as an important source of intellectual thought, varied perspective, and innovation. Employment decisions are made without regard to age, race, creed, color, religion, sex, national origin, ancestry, disability status, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression genetic information, marital status, citizenship status or any other protected characteristic. We strongly encourage and welcome people from historically marginalized groups to apply.
Workiva is committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities. To request assistance with the application process, please email [email protected].
Workiva employees are required to undergo comprehensive security and privacy training tailored to their roles, ensuring adherence to company policies and regulatory standards.
Workiva supports employees in working where they work best - either from an office or remotely from any location within their country of employment.
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