Principal UX Designer

The Trade Desk•New York, NY

9h•$151,100 - $277,000

About The Position

The Trade Desk is seeking a Principal UX Designer to define and drive the user experience vision for AI across our platform. This is a senior individual-contributor design leadership role for someone who can see around corners on what AI-powered experiences should feel like for advertisers and agency partners — and who can take that vision from concept through shipped, polished product. The Trade Desk is transforming the way advertising is bought, sold, and consumed as a global leader in the programmatic industry. As AI becomes a defining layer of how our customers plan, optimize, and make decisions on our platform, this role will shape what that experience looks and feels like: where AI should lead, where it should assist, and how it earns trust from sophisticated, data-driven users. Our industry is complicated, but we don’t believe our platform — or our AI — should be. As Principal Design Lead, you will own the end-to-end design vision and execution for AI experiences across The Trade Desk’s platform. You will bring a rare combination of strong UX craft, product thinking, and genuine fluency in how people work with AI — from conversational and agentic interfaces to predictive and generative experiences embedded directly in workflow. This is not a tooling or infrastructure role; it is a hands-on design leadership role focused on the customer-facing experience of AI itself. You will serve as a strategic design partner to Product, Engineering, Data Science, and UX Leadership, setting the experience bar for AI across the company. This role reports directly to the Vice President of UX Design and is a key member of the UX leadership team at The Trade Desk.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Design, HCI, Cognitive Science, or a related field (Master’s preferred)
10+ years of experience in product design or UX design, with significant recent focus on AI-powered or intelligent product experiences
Proven track record shaping the end-to-end UX vision for AI features, from concept through shipped product, in a complex enterprise or platform-based product
Deep expertise in interaction design for AI experiences — including conversational UI, recommendation and prediction surfaces, generative content, and agentic workflows
Strong command of Figma and modern prototyping tools, used in service of fast, high-fidelity exploration of AI concepts
Demonstrated experience designing for explainability, trust, and error recovery in AI or ML-driven products
Strong research instincts, with experience running or closely partnering on qualitative and quantitative research to validate AI experience decisions
Strong executive presence, with experience presenting vision and direction to VP-level and senior leadership
Exceptional communication and storytelling skills, with the ability to translate technical AI concepts into a clear, compelling user experience narrative
Experience partnering closely with Data Science and Engineering teams on model- driven product experiences
Ability to navigate ambiguity and drive clarity and alignment in complex, fast-moving environments

Nice To Haves

Working knowledge of machine learning concepts as they apply to UX — including model confidence, latency, and failure modes (preferred)
Experience in adtech, martech, or enterprise SaaS with complex, data-dense interfaces (preferred)
Published thought leadership, talks, or case studies on AI experience design (preferred)
Portfolio demonstrating AI experience design vision, hands-on craft, and measurable impact on user trust and product outcomes

Responsibilities

Define & Champion the AI Experience Vision: Set the UX vision and design principles for how AI shows up across The Trade Desk platform — from assistive and predictive patterns to generative and agentic experiences. Translate ambiguous AI capabilities into clear, compelling product experiences that make complex, data-dense decisions feel simple and trustworthy. Define what “good” looks like for AI interaction design at The Trade Desk: when AI should act, when it should ask, and how it should explain itself. Build and evangelize a point of view on human-AI collaboration in advertising workflows, grounded in user research and real customer behavior. Partner with UX Leadership to align the AI experience vision with broader product and company strategy.
Lead End-to-End Design Execution for AI Experiences: Lead hands-on, high-fidelity design for flagship AI features — from early concept and prototyping through detailed interaction design and launch. Design for the full spectrum of AI experience patterns: conversational interfaces, intelligent recommendations, automated workflows, and generative content surfaces. Rapidly prototype AI-powered concepts to test feasibility, gather feedback, and align stakeholders around a shared experience vision before heavy investment. Drive user research and usability testing specific to AI experiences, including how users build trust, calibrate reliance, and recover from AI errors. Partner closely with Data Science and Engineering to ensure model capabilities and UX vision evolve together, not in isolation.
Elevate Craft & Set the Bar for AI-Native Interaction Design: Set the craft standard for AI experience design across the UX organization, raising the bar on clarity, transparency, and trust in AI-driven interactions. Champion design patterns for explainability, confidence signaling, error states, and graceful degradation in AI features. Ensure AI experiences are accessible, inclusive, and usable across a wide range of customer sophistication and contexts. Provide critique and design direction on AI-related work across the design team, acting as the go-to expert and reviewer for AI experience quality.
Partner Cross-Functionally to Embed AI Across the Platform: Act as the primary design voice in AI strategy conversations with Product, Engineering, and Data Science leadership. Identify high-value opportunities to apply AI in service of better customer outcomes, not AI for its own sake. Build trusted relationships with senior stakeholders and serve as a thought partner on where and how AI should show up in the product roadmap. Represent the customer experience perspective in technical and data science discussions about model capability and behavior.
Champion AI-Native Ways of Working: Help shape and evangelize how design, product, and engineering work with AI — modeling AI-assisted prototyping and craft, and sharing what works across teams. Influence how the design system and engineering workflows evolve to enable AI-native experiences — partnering with the teams who own tooling and platform, without owning the mandate itself. Bring a strong, hands-on point of view to where AI accelerates the work and where human judgment must stay in the loop.
Mentor & Grow Design Talent: Mentor designers across the UX organization on AI experience design practices, research methods, and interaction patterns. Lead by example through visible, hands-on craft — modeling what excellent AI experience design looks like in practice. Contribute to a shared point of view, vocabulary, and set of patterns that help the broader design team design for AI with confidence.
Represent TTD’s AI Experience Point of View: Represent The Trade Desk at industry events and design conferences, sharing perspective on AI experience design in adtech. Position TTD as a company at the forefront of trustworthy, customer-centered AI experience design. Contribute to broader UX and AI design community conversations, research, and thought leadership.

Benefits

comprehensive healthcare (medical, dental, and vision) with premiums paid in full for employees and dependents
retirement benefits such as a 401k plan and company match
short and long-term disability coverage
basic life insurance
well-being benefits
reimbursement for certain tuition expenses
parental leave
sick time of 1 hour per 30 hours worked
vacation time for full-time employees up to 120 hours thru the first year and 160 hours thereafter
around 13 paid holidays per year
Employees can also purchase The Trade Desk stock at a discount through The Trade Desk’s Employee Stock Purchase Plan.