Job Description

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 Figma

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