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Principal Product Designer

San Francisco, California, United States · Washington, District of Columbia, United States

Primer exists to make the world a safer place.  We do this by providing trusted decision-ready AI to the world's most critical organizations.  Our software enables leaders, operators, and analysts to better understand the changing world around us in real time and make informed decisions when the stakes are high.  Primer has offices in San Francisco, Pasadena, CA and Arlington, VA.  For more information, please visit https://primer.ai/

About Us:
Primer exists to make the world a safer place.  We do this by providing trusted decision-ready AI to the world's most critical organizations.  Our software enables leaders, operators, and analysts to better understand the changing world around us in real time and make informed decisions when the stakes are high.  Primer has offices in San Francisco, Pasadena, CA and Arlington, VA.  For more information, please visit https://primer.ai/

Role Overview:
We’re expanding our user experience team to address new challenges and opportunities as we grow our product surface area and engage with an exciting set of new customers and users. We are seeking a Principal Product Designer to drive holistic, forward-thinking design initiatives, bring a user-centered perspective to the cross functional team, and set a high bar for design excellence.

As a Principal Product Designer, you’ll collaborate across disciplines to define the future of our platform. This role offers a chance to deeply influence both product direction and our design culture.

Key Responsibilities:

  • Guide Application-Level Design: Own the end-to-end design of critical features, systems, or entire product areas, ensuring cohesion and scalability. Collaborate with other designers, product managers, engineers and Go to Market to design intuitive and valuable experiences for our users
  • Shape Product Strategy: Partner with cross-functional teams to define long-term vision and deliver high-quality solutions that meet user and business needs.
  • Work across the design team: Provide thoughtful feedback, share expertise, and foster growth across the design team.
  • Champion Discovery Research: Lead user research to deeply understand user needs, mental models, and workflows, informing product decisions.
  • Collaborate with Engineering: Pair with product managers and engineering and data science teams to prototype and iterate quickly, ensuring seamless implementation and testing of ideas.

What We’re Looking For

  • You’re great at storytelling and pitching ideas. You’re able to think on your feet, not afraid to jump on a whiteboard (remotely or in person!), and love getting to great ideas in collaboration with others.
  • You’re a team player - you believe good ideas come from anywhere and want to bring the cross-functional team into the fold of the design process
  • You’re comfortable advocating for what users need and working with engineering to come to alternative solutions when timelines and feasibility prove challenging
  • Experience designing complex, information-dense enterprise software with a focus on scalability and usability
  • Expertise in systems thinking to drive consistency across applications or ecosystems.
  • Ability to navigate ambiguity and design for emerging user needs in high-stakes environments.

Qualifications:

  • 8+ years in product design, including experience in senior design roles.
  • Demonstrated success in leading significant design projects.
  • Strong skills in these areas:
    • Data visualization (e.g., advanced charts, network graphs)
    • Front-end prototyping and close collaboration with engineering
    • Qualitative user research and applying findings to product design
    • Facilitation of design workshops, discovery sessions and product scoping

What We Offer:

  • Competitive compensation and benefits package.
  • Opportunities for professional growth and development.
  • A supportive and inclusive work environment.
  • The chance to make a real impact in a growing organization.

The annual cash compensation range for this position is US $170,000 to US $240,000.  Final compensation will be determined based on experience and skills and may vary from the range listed above.

Primer works closely with the U.S. defense and intelligence establishment. Any offer of employment is conditioned on an applicant or employee being able to meet any applicable government contract requirements. The company may rescind any offer of employment to an applicant or terminate an employee if the applicant or employee is unable to perform the functions of the position in compliance with applicable government contracts or if an applicant or employee makes a false attestation of compliance.

What We Offer

We are a series D funded company with investors from Addition, USIT, Lux Capital, Amplify Partners, Addition Capital, Bloomberg Beta, and others.  We are intentional around building a diverse and inclusive team of subject matter experts to better advocate for the needs of our users. 

We care a lot about our work and about the well being of our team. We encourage everyone to work at a sustainable pace and have a flexible vacation policy for team members to utilize, Wellness Days and 100% paid leave for parents of growing families.

We offer competitive compensation and comprehensive benefits. This includes full medical, dental, and vision coverage, fertility benefits through Carrot, mental health coverage on demand with Headspace Care+, Gympass+ Membership via Wellhub, One Medical Membership, 401(k), remote work stipends, and monthly internet allowance.

Primer is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity and Affirmative Action employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics. Please see the United States Department of Labor's EEO poster and EEO poster supplement for additional information.

If you need assistance or accommodation due to a disability, you may contact us at info@primer.com.

Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

 

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