Principal Product Design Researcher

Microsoft•,

13h•$142,800 - $304,200

About The Position

Microsoft is seeking a Principal Design Researcher to lead discovery and help enterprise customer engagements begin with a clear understanding of users, workflows, constraints, and needs. The role involves working through ambiguous problems, identifying important research questions, and aligning customers and internal teams on scope and direction before solutions are built. The researcher plans and conducts end-to-end research, facilitates workshops that turn findings into shared decisions, and partners with engineering to carry insights into delivered products. When useful, the role also makes ideas tangible through concepts and prototypes. The position focuses on early-stage customer engagement and requires turning complex qualitative and quantitative input into evidence-based direction. The researcher will apply current AI-enabled tools to scale research and synthesis, while helping teams design AI-powered experiences that people understand and trust. The role also supports human-centered design practices, mentors other designers and researchers, and leads through expertise and influence, with or without direct reports.

Requirements

Master's degree in Industrial Design, Product Design, Human Computer Interaction, User Experience, Interaction Design, or a related field and 6+ years of experience working in product or service design; or bachelor's degree in one of these fields and 8+ years of experience; or equivalent experience.
Deep expertise in discovery and qualitative research methods, especially interviews, contextual inquiry, and synthesis, plus working knowledge of quantitative methods.
Demonstrated systems thinking and ability to map end-to-end processes, make sense of complex and ambiguous problems, and turn findings into clear direction teams act on.
Experience designing and facilitating workshops with cross-functional teams and senior stakeholders.
Strong project management skills, including scoping, planning, stakeholder coordination, and delivering multiple research efforts on schedule.
Experience working 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 demonstrating problem framing, research approach, key insights, and how insights shaped scope, direction, and outcomes; samples must be appropriate to share and contain no confidential customer information.

Nice To Haves

T-shaped skills, with research depth and working ability in adjacent areas 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.

Responsibilities

Define research plans, timelines, participant coordination, logistics, and stakeholder management; deliver work on schedule across multiple engagements.
Plan and conduct discovery research at the start of customer engagements, including stakeholder and user interviews, contextual inquiry, field observation, and surveys; select methods suited to the question, timeline, and customer environment.
Synthesize qualitative and quantitative input into insights, frameworks, journey maps, and problem statements; identify patterns, tensions, and opportunities.
Map end-to-end systems involving people, roles, workflows, data, technology, and potential AI use; identify dependencies, failure points, and leverage points.
Plan and facilitate discovery, co-design, prioritization, and alignment workshops with customers, engineers, and senior stakeholders, guiding groups toward concrete decisions.
Use research to align customers and internal teams on problems, priorities, success criteria, and direction.
Translate findings into concepts, flows, storyboards, or prototypes when useful to test assumptions and communicate direction.
Test concepts with users, measure effectiveness, and refine direction based on evidence.
Research how people understand, trust, and recover from AI-driven features; help teams design for transparency, control, and appropriate reliance.
Partner with engineering by involving engineers in research, grounding technical decisions in user needs, understanding constraints, and ensuring findings carry through to shipped work.
Use AI-enabled tools responsibly to support research planning, synthesis, and analysis; validate outputs for accuracy and bias and keep human judgment central.
Advocate for human-centered design and help engineering-led teams adopt accessible, repeatable research and validation practices.
Mentor designers and researchers, share repeatable research and facilitation practices, and lead through expertise and influence.