Lead/Principal Experience Designer - AI Prototyping

Partner with Aquent to join a globally recognized leader at the forefront of innovation, dedicated to shaping the future of how products are created. In this dynamic role, you will have a profound impact on the evolution of renowned products and platforms, driving advancements that inspire and engage millions worldwide. By bridging the gap between cutting-edge AI technology and human-centered design, you will shape new methodologies and transform ambiguous opportunities into tangible, validated experiences that redefine user interaction on a global scale.

The Opportunity

We are seeking a visionary design leader who is passionate about the intersection of AI and groundbreaking product development. This is an extraordinary opportunity to be a pivotal force in driving the next wave of innovation in how physical and digital products are imagined, designed, and brought to life. You will lead the charge in creating future-forward experiences, leveraging emerging technologies to rapidly prototype and validate new concepts that solve complex user needs.

What You'll Do

• Lead complex experience-design projects independently, creating clarity, momentum, and alignment from opportunity framing through validation and successful implementation.
• Define the experience vision, guiding principles, user journeys, interaction models, and success criteria to ensure teams remain focused on solving the right problems.
• Translate insights from research, user behavior, stakeholder input, and emerging technological possibilities into clear hypotheses, informed design decisions, and focused experiments.
• Leverage AI-enabled workflows to rapidly explore diverse concepts and construct interactive or coded prototypes using tools like Figma, Figma MCP, Cursor, or comparable platforms.
• Develop prototypes at the optimal fidelity required to answer critical questions, test assumptions, and mitigate risks before significant team commitment.
• Collaborate closely with engineering partners to understand technical constraints, co-create solution approaches, and make informed trade-offs that prioritize exceptional user experience over mere technical feasibility or speed.
• Proactively uncover latent user needs and validate potential value propositions, recognizing that users may articulate current pain points but not always the future-state solutions.
• Communicate strategic decisions through compelling narratives, evidence-backed insights, and tangible prototypes that align working teams and senior leadership with the opportunity.
• Contribute to the advancement of reusable prototyping patterns, AI workflows, design-system practices, and studio standards to continuously elevate quality and accelerate learning.

Must-Have Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience in experience design, product design, interaction design, service design, or a closely related field.
• A strong design thinker and maker with deep foundational knowledge in human-centered design, interaction design, and digital product thinking.
• Demonstrated experience autonomously leading ambiguous, cross-functional initiatives toward valuable and validated outcomes.
• Fluency with AI-assisted design and development workflows, enabling rapid progression from concept to experiential and evaluable prototypes.
• Sufficient technical fluency to engage credibly with engineering teams, navigate design and code-adjacent environments, and comprehend system constraints.
• Excellent judgment in discerning when and how to apply AI, coupled with the ability to rigorously evaluate generated work for quality, accuracy, accessibility, security, and responsible use.
• Clear communication, facilitation, and storytelling skills, adept at connecting user evidence, experience intent, business value, and technical implications.
• A compelling portfolio showcasing end-to-end leadership of complex digital products or innovation concepts, including framing, interaction design, prototyping, testing, and demonstrated, shipped, or validated outcomes.
• Proven experience partnering effectively with engineering teams within an agile or iterative product-development environment.

Nice-to-Have Qualifications

• Demonstrated use of AI-assisted tools to accelerate exploration, prototyping, or delivery, with specific experience in Figma, Figma MCP, Cursor, GitHub-based workflows, or comparable tools.
• Experience working with complex systems, internal tool design, emerging technologies, or product-creation workflows.