Principal, UX Design

Summit K12; United States; Remote; USD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical insurance

Dental insurance

Vision insurance

Short-term disability

Long-term disability

Life insurance

401(k) retirement plan

Paid Time Off

10 holidays + floating holiday

Wellness resources

Job summary

Summit K12 seeks a Principal, UX Design to own the product-experience architecture and design system, delivering coherent, accessible experiences across the portfolio. This hands-on leadership role partners with cross-functional teams to steer UX quality and standards.

The Principal directs UX practice through standards and collaboration, while the UX Design Lead handles assigned experiences. PMs maintain priorities and outcomes in this structure.

Qualifications

• 7+ years in product or UX design, including complex production workflows.
• Expertise in interaction design, information architecture, research, design systems, accessibility, and prototyping.
• Proven ability to lead through hands-on judgment with clear standards and cross-functional influence.
• Ability to independently deliver complex experience work and make defensible tradeoffs.
• Practical fluency with Figma or equivalent production design tools.
• Experience with AI-enabled design workflows and human verification.

Responsibilities

• Define coherent navigation, information architecture, interaction patterns, and experience principles across student, educator, administrator, and applicable family workflows.
• Personally design and resolve complex or consequential cross-product experiences using working prototypes and explicit decisions.
• Make recurring UX debt visible and recommend evidence-based improvements to accountable Product leaders.
• Own governance, documentation, versioning, and evolution of shared components, patterns, UX writing conventions, and accessible interaction standards.
• Collaborate on reusable patterns while keeping routine decisions close to owned work.
• Work with Engineering and QA to verify accessibility and experience expectations in production.
• Set lean, risk-proportionate research and usability standards; execute validation and interpret user evidence.
• Deliver complete implementation-ready specifications for owned work, including states, behaviors, accessibility, and edge cases.
• Resolve systemic implementation-fidelity gaps and inform post-release improvements.
• Partner with Product leadership to sequence design demand and preserve clear product decision rights.
• Establish approved AI-supported methods for prototypes, research synthesis, and design checks with human verification.
• Work directly with PMs, Engineering, Academic, Creative Studio, and customer-facing functions without unnecessary review gates.

Skills

Senior UX design

Information architecture

Interaction design

Design systems

Accessibility

Prototyping

Leadership

AI-enabled design

Tools

Figma

Job description

Principal, UX Design

Department: Product Management

Employment Type: Full Time

Location: Remote - USA

Reporting To: Chief Product Officer

Description

The Principal, UX Design owns Summit K12's product-experience architecture, UX standards, design system, and proportionate validation approach. This is a hands-on functional leadership role accountable for coherent, accessible experiences across the product portfolio, personally delivering complex and consequential design work.

The Principal directs UX design practice through standards, judgment, implementation follow-through, and cross-functional partnership, while the UX Design Lead independently owns assigned experiences. The Principal does not require a separate design management layer or routine approvals. Product Managers retain product priorities, requirements, acceptance, and outcomes.

Key Responsibilities

• Define coherent navigation, information architecture, interaction patterns, and experience principles across student, educator, administrator, and applicable family workflows.
• Personally design and resolve complex or consequential cross-product experiences using working prototypes and explicit decisions.
• Make recurring UX debt visible and recommend evidence-based improvements to accountable Product leaders.

• Own governance, documentation, versioning, and evolution of shared components, patterns, UX writing conventions, and accessible interaction standards.
• Collaborate with the UX Design Lead on reusable patterns while keeping routine experience decisions close to assigned work.
• Work with Engineering and QA to verify material accessibility and experience expectations in production.

• Set lean, risk-proportionate research and usability standards; personally execute consequential validation and interpret user evidence.
• Deliver complete implementation-ready specifications for owned work, including critical states, behaviors, accessibility, and edge cases.
• Resolve systemic implementation-fidelity gaps and ensure relevant post-release signals inform improvements.

• Partner with Product leadership to sequence design demand, make capacity tradeoffs visible, and preserve clear product decision rights.
• Establish approved AI-supported methods for prototypes, research synthesis, documentation, and design checks, with human verification.
• Work directly with PMs, Engineering, Academic, Creative Studio, and customer-facing functions without introducing unnecessary review gates.

Skills, Knowledge and Expertise

Required

• 7+ years in product or UX design, or equivalent demonstrated capability, including complex production workflows.
• Expertise in interaction design, information architecture, research, design systems, accessibility, and prototyping.
• Proven ability to lead through hands-on judgment, clear standards, and cross-functional influence.
• Ability to make defensible tradeoffs and independently deliver complex experience work.
• Practical fluency with Figma or equivalent production design tools.
• Experience using measured usability and product outcomes to guide design priorities.
• Responsible use and validation of AI-enabled design workflows.

• K-12 EdTech, learning-platform, assessment, reporting, or complex SaaS experience.
• Experience modernizing legacy platforms and designing for multilingual or varied-accessibility users.

Portfolio experiences become more coherent, accessible, and effective; complex design work moves through implementation reliably; a reusable design system and practical evidence reduce UX rework.

Benefits

Summit K12 offers a comprehensive benefits package. Highlights include:

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance with multiple plan options
• Company-paid short-term disability, long-term disability, and life insurance
• 401(k) retirement plan
• Paid Time Off (PTO) program
• 10 paid holidays plus 1 floating holiday annually
• Wellness resources and support programs

Summit K12 is an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to providing equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, genetic information, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local laws. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation, and training.