Principal Designer Jobs in California

26WD101847

Position Overview

At Autodesk, we do what no other company can: we help our customers design and make anything. As we continue to transform how customers experience Autodesk, we are investing in insight-driven product development, seamless digital experiences, and AI-powered innovation to help people achieve meaningful outcomes faster and smarter. To deliver on that vision, we need exceptional contributors and leaders who are curious, adaptable, customer-focused, and excited to help shape the future of work at Autodesk.

We are seeking a Principal Visual Experience Designer to operate at a creative leadership level as a highly strategic individual contributor, elevating the craft, quality, and consistency of visual design. In this role, you will partner with Product Design, Research, Product Management, Engineering, and Content Design to translate product strategy and interaction concepts into polished visual systems that delight users. You will influence product direction, shape cross-product experiences, help define a forward-looking visual design vision for AI-powered experiences, and raise the bar for visual quality across the organization.

Within the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) Experience Foundations (XF) organization, the Visual Experience Design (VXD) team plays a unique horizontal role—partnering across all AEC products to bring clarity, cohesion, and beauty to the ecosystem. Our mission is to deliver impact through delight and desirability, creating elegant, intuitive visual experiences that users love and trust.

This role is ideal for someone with exceptional visual craft and a strong point of view, who can influence others, identify opportunities to uplevel experiences, and contribute to a more cohesive, modern, and AI-forward design direction across AEC.

**When applying you must include your resume and portfolio link on your resume with password/access**

Responsibilities

• Design high-quality, visually refined experiences across workflows, features, and touchpoints that elevate usability and desirability
• Translate product strategy, interaction concepts, and emerging AI capabilities into clear, intuitive, and polished visual designs that support user confidence and trust
• Identify and drive “user delighter” opportunities—thoughtful details, patterns, and refinements that can scale across multiple AEC products
• Contribute to and leverage the Autodesk design system with scalable patterns and visual guidance to drive consistency, alignment, and efficiency across AEC while enabling product flexibility
• Partner closely with Product Design, Research, Product Management, Engineering, and Content Design to ensure visual design is aligned with user needs, technical constraints, and business goals
• Collaborate across teams to strengthen continuity and cohesion across the AEC product ecosystem
• Provide visual design leadership through craft—participating in critiques, offering guidance, and helping raise the quality bar across teams
• Translate complex workflows and concepts into elegant, understandable interfaces with strong attention to hierarchy, layout, and detail
• Create high-fidelity designs, prototypes, and specifications, and partner through implementation to ensure quality at launch
• Explore and help define visual patterns for AI-powered and adaptive experiences, including clarity, feedback, and trust

Minimum Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in visual design, product design, UX/UI design, or related fields
• Strong portfolio demonstrating exceptional visual craft and thoughtful, high-quality execution across digital products
• Deep expertise in typography, color, composition, hierarchy, and interface design
• Experience in motion design, user interface animation, and micro interactions that deliver intuitive, delightful experiences
• Experience designing for complex products, workflows, or platform ecosystems in enterprise environments to improve consistency and cohesion
• Demonstrated ability to collaborate cross-functionally and influence design decisions through strong rationale and craft
• Expert understanding of how visual design supports usability, accessibility, and interaction design, and the proven ability to apply insights strategically to influence product vision
• Experience contributing to design systems or scalable visual frameworks
• Ability to work effectively in ambiguous, evolving environments
• Proficiency with modern design and prototyping tools such as Figma
• Proficiency with AI tools and workflows, and sound judgment in applying them to visual design and prototyping process

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience designing AI-powered, adaptive, or context-aware experiences
• Experience mentoring designers or contributing to raising team craft standards
• Experience in the AEC industry

About Autodesk

Welcome to Autodesk! Amazing things are created every day with our software – from the greenest buildings and cleanest cars to the smartest factories and biggest hit movies. We help innovators turn their ideas into reality, transforming not only how things are made, but what can be made.

We take great pride in our culture here at Autodesk – it’s at the core of everything we do. Our culture guides the way we work and treat each other, informs how we connect with customers and partners, and defines how we show up in the world.

When you’re an Autodesker, you can do meaningful work that helps build a better world designed and made for all. Ready to shape the world and your future? Join us!

Benefits

From health and financial benefits to time away and everyday wellness, we give Autodeskers the best, so they can do their best work. Learn more about our benefits in the U.S. by visiting https://benefits.autodesk.com/

Salary is one part of Autodesk’s competitive compensation package. For U.S.-based roles, we expect a starting base salary between $130,000 and $232,320. Offers are based on the candidate’s experience and geographic location, and may exceed this range. In addition to base salaries, our compensation package may include annual cash bonuses, commissions for sales roles, stock grants, and a comprehensive benefits package.

Equal Employment Opportunity

At Autodesk, we're building a diverse workplace and an inclusive culture to give more people the chance to imagine, design, and make a better world. Autodesk is proud to be an equal opportunity employer and considers all qualified applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, national origin, disability, veteran status or any other legally protected characteristic. We also consider for employment all qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with applicable law.

Belonging

We take pride in cultivating a culture of belonging where everyone can thrive. Learn more here: https://www.autodesk.com/company/global-belonging

In-Person Onboarding and Identity Verification

This role may require in-person onboarding and/or in-person ID verification.