Principal Design Architect

Job Description

Overview

About M365 Core Design Studio

We’re a global, multidisciplinary team at Microsoft dedicated to bringing humanity to AI experiences. Our mission: Design intelligent, human-centered solutions that redefine the future of productivity tools for the AI era.

We combine technical depth with creative excellence, working on some of Microsoft’s most impactful experiences—M365 Copilot, Windows companions, People experiences, and Enterprise Search—with a focus on responsible AI and inclusive design.

Why Join Us?

• Shape the Future of AI: Influence the next generation of productivity experiences.
• Global Impact: Collaborate with diverse teams worldwide.
• Human-Centered Innovation: Make AI more intuitive, inclusive, and trustworthy.
• Culture of Creativity: Experiment boldly, prototype rapidly, and push boundaries.

The Role

As a Design Architect (often called a Creative Technologist in the industry), you’ll operate as a high-level individual contributor who thrives in the new era of designing for AI. This isn’t just about designing interfaces—it’s about shaping how AI behaves, responds, and integrates into people’s lives.

You will:

• Lead with Curiosity: Explore emerging AI tools and techniques by default—prompt engineering, vibe coding, rapid prototyping, and creative experimentation are second nature to you.
• Design Like a Maker: Approach problems hands-on, building prototypes, testing ideas, and iterating quickly to uncover what’s possible. Comfortable digging into prompts, models, and backend systems to move design forward.
• Push Technical Boundaries: Partner deeply with engineering and data science to influence backend services, LLM model requirements, and system behaviors from a design perspective. Comfortable discussing how modern AI systems are designed, trained, and deployed, and how these choices influence model behavior, user experience, and system reliability.
• Shape Strategic Decisions: Identify and steward complex design choices that set the long-term direction for AI-powered experiences.
• Operate Ahead of the Curve: Work on execution now and in parallel in a 6–12 month horizon, researching, ideating, and evangelizing future patterns while the core team focuses on current delivery.
• Scale Through Influence: Collaborate deeply across discipline boundaries, being a key bridge between Design, PM, Engineering, Data Science and Research. You raise the technical fluency of the design team through coaching, workshops and shared frameworks.

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

• AI-Forward Mindset: You’re fluent in the language of AI—prompting, context engineering, RAG systems—and you’re eager to experiment with new tools and approaches. You can evaluate AI system behavior and help define quality expectations for complex, multi-turn user scenarios.
• Creative Technologist DNA: You blend design craft with technical curiosity, diving into prototypes, code, and emerging technologies to bring ideas to life beyond pixels with real data
• Collaborative Leadership: You influence without authority, building trust across PM, Engineering, Data Science, Research and Design teams.
• Strategic Vision: You see the big picture and are not afraid to make design and business cases that shape the future.

Qualifications

Required 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).
• Deep experience designing for AI/LLM-powered experiences; technical background and familiarity with conversational and voice systems preferred.
• Proficiency in Figma and AI prototyping tools; experience with vibe coding or similar creative prototyping approaches is a plus.
• Solid storytelling and communication skills for influencing at all levels.
• Appetite for innovation and ability to thrive in fast-paced, evolving environments.

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 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).
• Experience shipping products, services, or games and/or delivering to customers as a result of an end-to-end design process.
• Portfolio includes AI behavior work, model shaping exercises, prototypes that show orchestration, tool use, or agent behavior beyond UI.
• Experience with agents, tool integration and orchestration or evaluation frameworks is a plus.
• Experience working with ambiguity in AI systems, including partial answers, uncertainty handling, or graceful fallbacks.

This position will be open for a minimum of 5 days, with applications accepted on an ongoing basis until the position is filled.

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, citizenship, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, immigration status, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran or military status, race, ethnicity, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable local laws, regulations and ordinances. If you need assistance with religious accommodations and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations.