Principal / Lead Designer

Principal / Lead Designer

Onsite | Abu Dhabi

AppliedAI is a pioneering AI technology company headquartered in Abu Dhabi, committed to innovation and excellence in artificial intelligence solutions across regulated industries such as healthcare, insurance, government, and financial services.

We are seeking a skilled and dynamic Principal Designer to join our team and help shape intuitive, powerful user experiences on our Opus platform.

We are building a category-defining AI platform, and we need a Principal/Lead Product Designer who blends world-class craft, systems thinking, and deep AI literacy. Someone who can imagine experiences that don’t exist yet - then bring them to life with elegance, precision, and speed.

Key Responsibilities:

Define the Vision

• Create a north-star experience for how users interact with AI - intuitive, human, and beautifully simple.
• Shape the design language, patterns, motion principles, and identity that define our product for years to come.Translate business goals into cohesive product concepts and experience strategies.

Own & Ship World-Class Product

• Own a major product area end-to-end: research, user flows, prototyping, visuals, interactions, and implementation.
• Drive features from concept to prototype to shipped experience, ensuring every detail is polished and intentional.
• Collaborate closely with engineering to ensure craft, behaviours, animations, and micro-interactions survive the build process.

Cross-Functional Leadership

• Influence and align stakeholders across engineering, product, AI teams, and leadership.
• Communicate design rationale clearly to both technical and non-design audiences.
• Act as a thought partner to senior product and engineering leads on strategy and trade-offs.

Research, Insights & Data

• Partner with research to understand user behaviours, needs, and pain points.
• Use qualitative and quantitative data to guide decisions and measure success.
• Run iterative experiments, define goals, track metrics, and refine designs based on insights.

Raise the Bar for Craft

• Set an exceptionally high bar for UX, visual design, interaction quality, and emotional experience.
• Mentor other designers and elevate the design culture.
• Own and evolve the design system - ensuring scalability, consistency, and delight.

AI-Specific Responsibilities

• Design new interaction paradigms for AI agents, automation, co-pilots, and generative experiences.
• Partner with AI model training teams to prototype behaviours, prompt patterns, and explainability features.
• Experiment with new modalities (text, voice, workflow automation, predictive UX, intelligent defaults).

Qualifications:

Required

• 7–12+ years of product design experience in high-craft, product-forward companies or design agency
• Portfolio demonstrating end-to-end ownership and shipped, world-class digital products.
• Experience defining a design language or design system.
• Proven ability to lead complex, ambiguous projects through to polished implementation.
• Strong system thinking + visual design + interaction design.
• Ability to work fast and iteratively in startup-like environments

Preferred

• Experience designing AI-driven or data-intensive products.
• Experience collaborating with AI model training or LLM teams.
• Track record of setting design vision in a high-growth or high-impact environment.
• Experience partnering with major technology companies or external design teams.
• Motion design or prototyping expertise (Figma, ProtoPie, Principle, Framer).

Benefits:

• Opportunity to work with a leading AI technology company.
• Collaborative and innovative work environment.
• Growing, entrepreneurial and forward-thinking culture.
• Career growth and professional development opportunities.
• Exposure to a thriving ecosystem working from our Abu Dhabi HQ.
• 21 days of paid annual leave.
• Comprehensive private health insurance.
• Visa sponsorship for international candidates.