Principal Product Design Researcher

Microsoft is seeking a Principal Product Design Researcher to lead end-to-end discovery and customer engagement research. In this role, you will synthesize complex inputs into evidence-based direction, work closely with engineering to translate findings into delivered solutions, and support the design of AI-powered experiences.

This position is United States onsite and includes a base pay range of USD 142,800 - 304,200 per year. For Product Design IC5, the typical base pay range across the U.S. is USD $142,800 - $274,800 per year, with different ranges for the San Francisco Bay area and the New York City metropolitan area: USD $188,000 - $304,200 per year.

What you’ll do

• Define research plans, set timelines, coordinate participants and logistics, manage stakeholders, and deliver on schedule across multiple simultaneous engagements.
• Plan and conduct research at the start of customer engagements, using appropriate methods such as stakeholder and user interviews, contextual inquiry, field observation, and surveys.
• Synthesize qualitative and quantitative inputs into clear insights, frameworks, journey maps, and problem statements, identifying patterns, tensions, and opportunities.
• Map and understand end-to-end processes, including people, roles, workflows, data, technology, and where AI can help or harm, including dependencies, failure points, and leverage points.
• Plan and run workshops with customers, engineers, and senior stakeholders, including discovery sessions, co-design, prioritization, and alignment.
• Build shared understanding with customers and internal teams by aligning on problems worth solving, priorities, success criteria, and next steps.
• When helpful, translate findings into concepts, flows, storyboards, or prototypes to test assumptions and communicate direction.
• Test concepts with users, measure what works, and refine direction using evidence.
• Study how people understand, trust, and recover from AI-driven features, supporting transparency, control, and appropriate reliance.
• Bring engineers into research so technical decisions reflect user needs and findings carry through to what ships.
• Use current AI-enabled tools to speed up research planning, synthesis, and analysis while following responsible and ethical AI practices, validating outputs for accuracy and bias and keeping human judgment central to decisions.
• Support engineering-led teams in adopting human-centered practices, emphasizing how early research and iterative validation reduce risk.
• Mentor designers and researchers, sharing repeatable research and facilitation practices and leading through expertise and influence.

What you bring

• Education and experience: A 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. Alternatively, a Bachelor’s Degree in one of the listed fields AND 8+ years experience in product or service design, or equivalent experience.
• Deep expertise in discovery and qualitative research methods (including interviews, contextual inquiry, and synthesis), with working knowledge of quantitative methods.
• Strong systems thinking, including the ability to map end-to-end processes, address complex ambiguous problems, and turn findings into clear direction teams can act on.
• Experience facilitating workshops with cross-functional teams and senior stakeholders.
• Strong project management skills, including scoping, planning, coordinating stakeholders, and delivering multiple research efforts on schedule.
• Experience partnering closely with engineering teams and building support for human-centered practices.
• Hands-on experience applying AI-enabled tools to research or synthesis, including evaluating output quality, limitations, and ethical considerations.
• A portfolio or case study presentation showing how you framed the problem, your research approach, key insights, and how insights shaped scope, direction, and outcomes, with work samples suitable for sharing and without confidential customer information.

Technologies

• Figma

Preferred qualifications

• T-shaped skills, with research depth plus adjacent capability such as service design, interaction design, or content design.
• Ability to produce service blueprints, concepts, storyboards, or prototypes in Figma or comparable tools.
• Experience in client-facing, consulting, or customer engagement settings.
• Experience researching enterprise users, complex workflows, or regulated industries.
• Experience researching AI-powered products and services, or applying responsible AI frameworks.
• Experience introducing or scaling human-centered design in engineering-led organizations.
• Experience establishing research operations such as repositories, recruiting processes, or insight-sharing rituals.
• Experience mentoring designers and researchers.

Minimum experience: 6 years.