Workiva is hiring a Principal Experience Designer to shape the visual direction of Unify, its enterprise design system. The role sits within the design systems team, owning visual language, token architecture, and reference designs, alongside high-visibility visual work for conferences and executive audiences.
What you'll do
- Define and evolve Unify's visual language across typography, color, spacing, iconography, motion, and brand expression
- Partner with components and patterns/templates sub-teams to ensure consistent visual design application
- Partner with product design, product management and engineering to translate decisions from system to production
- Maintain a scalable, semantic token architecture across products
- Create and maintain a library of reference designs showing real product application
- Own visual usage guidance and documentation for designers, engineers, and AI-assisted workflows
- Establish ongoing evaluation of AI-generated designs and prototypes to strengthen tokens and guidance
- Lead visual design for high-stakes moments including conferences, executive presentations, and marketing partnerships
- Coach designers and influence cross-functional partners through feedback and visual storytelling
What we're looking for
- 10+ years of experience in product design, visual design, UX, or related fields
- Significant work on platform or enterprise products
- Bachelor's degree in Design, HCI, or related field (or 8 years experience with Master's degree, or PhD with 6 years experience)
Nice to have
- Portfolio demonstrating exceptional visual craft and scalable system design translation
- Hands-on experience with AI-assisted design or prototyping workflows
- Experience defining or evolving a design system's visual language, tokens, components, patterns, documentation
- Ability to create compelling product narratives for senior leaders
- Experience partnering with engineers on design intent, system health, and implementation tradeoffs
- Track record of influencing and coaching teams without formal authority
- Experience building reference sites, design-system documentation, or machine-readable design guidance
- Experience with semantic or multi-tier token systems, motion design, presentation design, or event experiences
- Background in front-end development, developer tools, cross-platform systems, or highly regulated industries
Good to know
- Up to 20-25% travel required to meet with teams, partners, and customers
- Reliable internet connection required for remote or hybrid work
- Employees can work from an office or remotely within their country of employment