Sr. Principal UX Engineer

Role overview

Own end-to-end user experience for product areas in a short-iteration software team, combining ongoing research with interaction and visual design. You will work closely with product and engineering, regularly testing ideas with operational users and shaping each cycle’s work around evidence. The products serve demanding, data-heavy mission workflows where clarity, accessibility, and reliable decisions matter.

Responsibilities - Plan and conduct recurring interviews, contextual inquiry, field observation, and usability tests; maintain direct access to users. - Turn research into personas, journeys, opportunity areas, hypotheses, and user stories with clear acceptance criteria. - Validate designs before and after release, track usability measures, and use findings to inform priorities. - Design flows, information architecture, interactions, and visual UI; prototype ideas for testing and delivery. - Pair with engineers on implementation, participate in team planning and reviews, and break design into small shippable increments. - Maintain a shared design system and research repository, and champion accessibility in complex workflows.

Requirements - At least 5 years of UI/UX or product design experience, with portfolio case studies showing how research influenced product direction. - Hands-on skill in generative and evaluative research, including interviews, contextual inquiry, surveys, and usability testing. - Strong interviewing and participant-recruitment skills, with the ability to sustain research during short development cycles. - Experience designing enterprise, analytics, or data-intensive applications such as dashboards, maps, complex forms, or workflows. - At least 2 years embedded on an Extreme Programming team, collaborating in short iterations and pairing with engineers. - Practical use of AI tools for research synthesis, ideation, or prototyping, with sound judgment about bias, limits, and data handling.

Nice to have

Understanding of military or national-security workflows such as intelligence analysis, mission planning, logistics, or geospatial operations, and of usability principles for high-pressure settings. Familiarity with WCAG 2.1 AA or Section 508 accessibility standards is relevant to the work.

Benefits and work setup

The source lists a base salary range of $93,000–$255,000, with the actual offer dependent on factors including location, experience, and contract requirements. Benefits include performance bonuses, health, dental and vision coverage, a matched retirement plan, paid time off and holidays, income protection, and flexible work arrangements where available. The team works in one- to two-week cycles and emphasizes frequent user feedback and sustainable delivery.