Microsoft empowers every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. For our enterprise customers, that means building solutions grounded in a real understanding of the people who use them: their goals, workflows, constraints, and the decisions they make every day. In the Microsoft Frontier Company, you won’t just build software; you’ll deliver real outcomes for some of the world’s most complex organizations.We are seeking a Principal Design Researcher to lead discovery and help customer engagements start in the right place. You will get close to customers, make sense of complex and ambiguous situations, and align customers and internal teams on scope and direction before solutions are built. You will plan and run research end to end, lead workshops that turn insight into shared decisions, and work with engineering to carry findings into what gets delivered. Where it helps, you will make ideas tangible through concepts and prototypes.This role suits someone who is comfortable at the ambiguous front end of a project. You can take an open-ended problem, find the questions that matter, organize the work to answer them, and bring stakeholders to a clear, evidence-based direction. You will also apply current AI-enabled tools to scale research and synthesis, and help teams shape AI-powered experiences that people understand and trust.
Responsibilities
Scope and manage research. Define research plans, set timelines, coordinate participants and logistics, manage stakeholders, and deliver on schedule. Keep work moving across multiple engagements at once.
Lead discovery research. Plan and conduct research at the start of customer engagements, including stakeholder and user interviews, contextual inquiry, field observation, and surveys. Choose methods that fit the question, timeline, and customer environment.
Make sense of complexity. Synthesize large amounts of qualitative and quantitative input into clear insights, frameworks, journey maps, and problem statements. Find the patterns, tensions, and opportunities that others miss.
Think in systems. Map and understand the end-to-end process, including people, roles, workflows, data, technology, and where AI can help or harm. Identify dependencies, failure points, and leverage points so solutions improve the whole system, not just isolated parts.
Design and facilitate workshops. Plan and run workshops with customers, engineers, and senior stakeholders, including discovery sessions, co-design, prioritization, and alignment. Move groups from open discussion to concrete decisions.
Align on scope and direction. Turn research into shared understanding. Help customers and internal teams agree on the problems worth solving, priorities, success criteria, and a clear direction forward.
Make ideas tangible. When useful, translate findings into concepts, flows, storyboards, or prototypes to test assumptions and communicate direction.
Validate and iterate. Test concepts with users, measure what works, and refine direction based on evidence.
Research AI-powered experiences. Study how people understand, trust, and recover from AI-driven features, and help teams design for transparency, control, and appropriate reliance.
Partner closely with engineering. Bring engineers into research, ground technical decisions in user needs, understand technical constraints, and make sure findings carry through to what ships.
Throughout Engagements:
- Apply AI tools responsibly. Use current AI-enabled tools to speed up research planning, synthesis, and analysis while following responsible and ethical AI practices. Validate generated outputs for accuracy and bias, and keep human judgment central to insights and decisions.
- Advocate for human-centered design. Help engineering-led teams adopt human-centered practices. Show how early research and iterative validation reduce risk, and make these methods accessible and repeatable for non-designers.
- Raise the bar. Mentor designers and researchers, share repeatable research and facilitation practices, and lead through expertise and influence, whether or not you have direct reports.
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 expertise in discovery and qualitative research methods, especially interviews, contextual inquiry, and synthesis, plus working knowledge of quantitative methods.
- Strong systems thinking, with demonstrated ability to map end-to-end processes and make sense of complex, ambiguous problems, then turn findings into clear direction that teams act on.
- Experience designing and 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 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 showing how you framed the problem, your research approach, key insights, and how those insights shaped scope, direction, and outcomes. Work samples must be appropriate to share and must not contain confidential customer information.
Preferred Qualifications:
- T-shaped skills: depth in research with 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.
#FDE
#MicrosoftFrontierCompany
Product Design IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $142,800 - $274,800 per year. There is a different range applicable to specific work locations, within the San Francisco Bay area and New York City metropolitan area, and the base pay range for this role in those locations is USD $188,000 - $304,200 per year.
Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here:
https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-corporate-pay
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.
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