Principal, UX Design

OpenKrill; United States; Remote; USD 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Summit K12 is seeking a Principal, UX Design to own the product-experience architecture, UX standards, and the design system. This hands-on leadership role ensures coherent, accessible experiences across the product portfolio, delivering complex design work personally and guiding cross-functional teams.

In this role you will set experience principles, governance of shared components, and validation strategies, while partnering with Product, Engineering, Academic, and Creative Studio to maintain

Qualifications

• 7+ years in product or UX design or equivalent with 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.

Responsibilities

• Define coherent navigation, information architecture, interaction patterns, and experience principles across workflows.
• Personally design and resolve complex cross-product experiences using 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, and accessibility standards.
• Collaborate with the UX Design Lead on reusable patterns while keeping routine decisions close to owned work.
• Work with Engineering and QA to verify material accessibility and experience expectations in production.
• Set lean, risk-proportionate research and usability standards; execute consequential validation.
• Deliver complete implementation-ready specifications including critical states, behaviors, accessibility, and edge cases.
• Resolve fidelity gaps and inform post-release improvements.
• Partner with Product leadership to sequence design demand and preserve decision rights.
• Establish AI-supported methods for prototypes, research synthesis, documentation, and design checks.
• Work with PMs, Engineering, Academic, Creative Studio, and customer-facing functions without unnecessary review gates.
• Definition of Success: Portfolio experiences become more coherent, accessible, and effective; reusable design system and evidence reduce UX rework.

Skills

UX design leadership

Interaction design

Information architecture

Design systems

Accessibility

Prototyping

AI-enabled design

Tools

Figma

Job 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.

1. Experience Architecture & Standards

• 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.

2. Design System & Accessibility

• 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.

3. Research, Validation & Implementation

• 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.

4. Functional Leadership, AI & Capacity

• 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.

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.

Preferred

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

Definition of Success

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.