Principal Designer Jobs in USA with Visa Sponsorship
Principal Designer roles in the U.S. regularly qualify for H-1B visa and O-1 visa sponsorship, with employers filing Labor Condition Applications through the Department of Labor. Design leadership positions typically meet specialty occupation requirements when a bachelor's degree in design, HCI, or a related field is standard for the role. For detailed occupation requirements, see the O*NET profile.
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Get Access To All JobsJoin us as we work to create a thriving ecosystem that delivers accessible, high-quality, and sustainable healthcare for all.
Join athenahealth’s quest to make healthcare work the way it should.
athenahealth is looking for designers who can dive into complex design challenges and create solutions to help transform the healthcare industry. If you’re a talented, innovative, and strategic designer motivated to make a difference in healthcare, we want to talk to you.
Position Summary
We’re looking for a multifaceted Principal Experience Designer to join the Medication Management team within our Clinicals product. This role combines hands-on experience design with strategic design leadership, requiring someone who can both shape the long-term direction of our product and translate that vision into thoughtful, effective solutions. Working closely with a multidisciplinary agile R&D team, you’ll develop a deep understanding of the needs and workflows of providers and clinical staff, identify opportunities to improve their experiences, and help drive meaningful improvements that ease the burden on humans in healthcare.
About the Team
The Medication Management (Meds) team develops efficient, intuitive experiences across a system that sends over 17 million prescriptions per month. It provides clinicians with information about patients’ medications and supports medication management and vaccine administration so they can deliver high-quality patient care.
We envision a future where medication management is effortless, intelligent, and connected, so every patient can start and stay on the treatment that is best for them. As part of the Meds zone, you’ll work to create more tailored experiences related to ordering and reconciliation, medication list management, and medication adherence, reimagining and optimizing capabilities our users consistently identify as essential to their work.
A successful candidate will embrace the challenge of elevating design within an enterprise product team. You’ll champion our users, develop a clear point of view on UX decisions, and work both independently and collaboratively to influence outcomes across the zone. You enjoy finding ways to drive incremental but significant improvements that keep us moving toward a greater long-term vision.
Role Location
This is a hybrid role based in Boston, MA. Domestic travel is expected a few times per year to conduct onsite research with our customers, shadowing clinicians who use our products.
Essential Job Responsibilities
- Conduct generative research to inform product strategy, identify opportunities, and define project scope.
- Translate complex clinical workflows and user needs into intuitive product experiences, from early concepts through detailed interaction design and implementation.
- Collaborate with cross-functional colleagues to establish a long-term vision for complex problem spaces and translate that vision into manageable phases of work.
- Guide teams through decisions and tradeoffs related to project scope, design strategy, and implementation, balancing user needs, risks, dependencies, and business constraints.
- Create workflows, journey maps, vision documents, and other artifacts to influence product backlog prioritization and planning.
- Plan and facilitate workshops to interpret research, frame problems, identify opportunities, explore solutions, and align teams on next steps.
- Foster empathy for users through storytelling and compelling, shareable research and design artifacts.
- Help define success criteria and metrics to evaluate design outcomes.
Additional Job Responsibilities
- Proactively build relationships across product teams and organizational boundaries to promote collaboration, cohesion, and consistency across the full user experience.
- Mentor junior designers and guide cross-functional colleagues through design reviews and collaborative problem-solving.
- Contribute to team-wide initiatives that strengthen design processes and practices.
- Adapt to evolving business and team needs with flexibility, initiative, and a willingness to contribute wherever needed to achieve results.
Expected Education & Experience
- 8+ years of professional UX experience.
- Demonstrated ability to influence across functions and product areas, incorporating diverse perspectives while developing and advocating for a clear point of view.
- Deep knowledge of UX practices within agile software development, including ideation, interaction design, user research, and evaluative testing.
- Extensive experience conducting and synthesizing user research, immersing yourself in complex problem spaces, and translating insights into actionable product decisions.
- Strong analytical thinking, problem-framing, and communication skills, with the ability to navigate ambiguity, consider risks and constraints, and make timely decisions.
- Hands-on experience with or exposure to emerging AI tools, with the ability to explore new tools independently and apply them thoughtfully to accelerate work and create meaningful value.
- Portfolio demonstrating the ability to tell a compelling story about discovering problems, defining solutions, influencing strategy, and collaborating on successful execution.
Expected Compensation
$153,000 - $259,000* The base salary range shown reflects the full range for this role from minimum to maximum. At athenahealth, base pay depends on multiple factors, including job-related experience, relevant knowledge and skills, how your qualifications compare to others in similar roles, and geographical market rates. Base pay is only one part of our competitive Total Rewards package - depending on role eligibility, we offer both short and long-term incentives by way of an annual discretionary bonus plan, variable compensation plan, and equity plans.
About athenahealth
Our vision: In an industry that becomes more complex by the day, we stand for simplicity. We offer IT solutions and expert services that eliminate the daily hurdles preventing healthcare providers from focusing entirely on their patients — powered by our vision to create a thriving ecosystem that delivers accessible, high-quality, and sustainable healthcare for all.
Our company culture: Our talented employees — or athenistas, as we call ourselves — spark the innovation and passion needed to accomplish our vision. We are a diverse group of dreamers and doers with unique knowledge, expertise, backgrounds, and perspectives. We unite as mission-driven problem-solvers with a deep desire to achieve our vision and make our time here count. Our award-winning culture is built around shared values of inclusiveness, accountability, and support.
Our DEI commitment: Our vision of accessible, high-quality, and sustainable healthcare for all requires addressing the inequities that stand in the way. That's one reason we prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion in every aspect of our business, from attracting and sustaining a diverse workforce to maintaining an inclusive environment for athenistas, our partners, customers and the communities where we work and serve.
What we can do for you:
Along with health and financial benefits, athenistas enjoy perks specific to each location, including commuter support, employee assistance programs, tuition assistance, employee resource groups, and collaborative workspaces — some offices even welcome dogs.
We also encourage a better work-life balance for athenistas with our flexibility. While we know in-office collaboration is critical to our vision, we recognize that not all work needs to be done within an office environment, full-time. With consistent communication and digital collaboration tools, athenahealth enables employees to find a balance that feels fulfilling and productive for each individual situation.
In addition to our traditional benefits and perks, we sponsor events throughout the year, including book clubs, external speakers, and hackathons. We provide athenistas with a company culture based on learning, the support of an engaged team, and an inclusive environment where all employees are valued.
Learn more about our culture and benefits here: athenahealth.com/careers
https://www.athenahealth.com/careers/equal-opportunity
Join us as we work to create a thriving ecosystem that delivers accessible, high-quality, and sustainable healthcare for all.
Join athenahealth’s quest to make healthcare work the way it should.
athenahealth is looking for designers who can dive into complex design challenges and create solutions to help transform the healthcare industry. If you’re a talented, innovative, and strategic designer motivated to make a difference in healthcare, we want to talk to you.
Position Summary
We’re looking for a multifaceted Principal Experience Designer to join the Medication Management team within our Clinicals product. This role combines hands-on experience design with strategic design leadership, requiring someone who can both shape the long-term direction of our product and translate that vision into thoughtful, effective solutions. Working closely with a multidisciplinary agile R&D team, you’ll develop a deep understanding of the needs and workflows of providers and clinical staff, identify opportunities to improve their experiences, and help drive meaningful improvements that ease the burden on humans in healthcare.
About the Team
The Medication Management (Meds) team develops efficient, intuitive experiences across a system that sends over 17 million prescriptions per month. It provides clinicians with information about patients’ medications and supports medication management and vaccine administration so they can deliver high-quality patient care.
We envision a future where medication management is effortless, intelligent, and connected, so every patient can start and stay on the treatment that is best for them. As part of the Meds zone, you’ll work to create more tailored experiences related to ordering and reconciliation, medication list management, and medication adherence, reimagining and optimizing capabilities our users consistently identify as essential to their work.
A successful candidate will embrace the challenge of elevating design within an enterprise product team. You’ll champion our users, develop a clear point of view on UX decisions, and work both independently and collaboratively to influence outcomes across the zone. You enjoy finding ways to drive incremental but significant improvements that keep us moving toward a greater long-term vision.
Role Location
This is a hybrid role based in Boston, MA. Domestic travel is expected a few times per year to conduct onsite research with our customers, shadowing clinicians who use our products.
Essential Job Responsibilities
- Conduct generative research to inform product strategy, identify opportunities, and define project scope.
- Translate complex clinical workflows and user needs into intuitive product experiences, from early concepts through detailed interaction design and implementation.
- Collaborate with cross-functional colleagues to establish a long-term vision for complex problem spaces and translate that vision into manageable phases of work.
- Guide teams through decisions and tradeoffs related to project scope, design strategy, and implementation, balancing user needs, risks, dependencies, and business constraints.
- Create workflows, journey maps, vision documents, and other artifacts to influence product backlog prioritization and planning.
- Plan and facilitate workshops to interpret research, frame problems, identify opportunities, explore solutions, and align teams on next steps.
- Foster empathy for users through storytelling and compelling, shareable research and design artifacts.
- Help define success criteria and metrics to evaluate design outcomes.
Additional Job Responsibilities
- Proactively build relationships across product teams and organizational boundaries to promote collaboration, cohesion, and consistency across the full user experience.
- Mentor junior designers and guide cross-functional colleagues through design reviews and collaborative problem-solving.
- Contribute to team-wide initiatives that strengthen design processes and practices.
- Adapt to evolving business and team needs with flexibility, initiative, and a willingness to contribute wherever needed to achieve results.
Expected Education & Experience
- 8+ years of professional UX experience.
- Demonstrated ability to influence across functions and product areas, incorporating diverse perspectives while developing and advocating for a clear point of view.
- Deep knowledge of UX practices within agile software development, including ideation, interaction design, user research, and evaluative testing.
- Extensive experience conducting and synthesizing user research, immersing yourself in complex problem spaces, and translating insights into actionable product decisions.
- Strong analytical thinking, problem-framing, and communication skills, with the ability to navigate ambiguity, consider risks and constraints, and make timely decisions.
- Hands-on experience with or exposure to emerging AI tools, with the ability to explore new tools independently and apply them thoughtfully to accelerate work and create meaningful value.
- Portfolio demonstrating the ability to tell a compelling story about discovering problems, defining solutions, influencing strategy, and collaborating on successful execution.
Expected Compensation
$153,000 - $259,000* The base salary range shown reflects the full range for this role from minimum to maximum. At athenahealth, base pay depends on multiple factors, including job-related experience, relevant knowledge and skills, how your qualifications compare to others in similar roles, and geographical market rates. Base pay is only one part of our competitive Total Rewards package - depending on role eligibility, we offer both short and long-term incentives by way of an annual discretionary bonus plan, variable compensation plan, and equity plans.
About athenahealth
Our vision: In an industry that becomes more complex by the day, we stand for simplicity. We offer IT solutions and expert services that eliminate the daily hurdles preventing healthcare providers from focusing entirely on their patients — powered by our vision to create a thriving ecosystem that delivers accessible, high-quality, and sustainable healthcare for all.
Our company culture: Our talented employees — or athenistas, as we call ourselves — spark the innovation and passion needed to accomplish our vision. We are a diverse group of dreamers and doers with unique knowledge, expertise, backgrounds, and perspectives. We unite as mission-driven problem-solvers with a deep desire to achieve our vision and make our time here count. Our award-winning culture is built around shared values of inclusiveness, accountability, and support.
Our DEI commitment: Our vision of accessible, high-quality, and sustainable healthcare for all requires addressing the inequities that stand in the way. That's one reason we prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion in every aspect of our business, from attracting and sustaining a diverse workforce to maintaining an inclusive environment for athenistas, our partners, customers and the communities where we work and serve.
What we can do for you:
Along with health and financial benefits, athenistas enjoy perks specific to each location, including commuter support, employee assistance programs, tuition assistance, employee resource groups, and collaborative workspaces — some offices even welcome dogs.
We also encourage a better work-life balance for athenistas with our flexibility. While we know in-office collaboration is critical to our vision, we recognize that not all work needs to be done within an office environment, full-time. With consistent communication and digital collaboration tools, athenahealth enables employees to find a balance that feels fulfilling and productive for each individual situation.
In addition to our traditional benefits and perks, we sponsor events throughout the year, including book clubs, external speakers, and hackathons. We provide athenistas with a company culture based on learning, the support of an engaged team, and an inclusive environment where all employees are valued.
Learn more about our culture and benefits here: athenahealth.com/careers
https://www.athenahealth.com/careers/equal-opportunity
See all 1,018+ Principal Designer Jobs
Sign up for free to unlock all listings, filter by visa type, and get alerts for new Principal Designer roles.
Get Access To All JobsTips for Finding Visa Sponsorship as a Principal Designer
Document the degree requirement clearly
H-1B approval for design roles depends on establishing that a specific bachelor's degree is required, not just preferred. Ask your employer to ensure the job description and LCA explicitly state a degree in design, HCI, or a related field as a baseline requirement.
Highlight systems-level design experience
Principal Designer roles that involve design systems, cross-functional leadership, or product strategy are easier to defend as specialty occupations. Evidence of complex, theory-driven work strengthens the petition beyond just a portfolio of finished screens or deliverables.
Consider O-1A if your profile is strong
If you have industry awards, published work, speaking engagements, or have led high-visibility products, you may qualify for an O-1A visa. This category has no lottery and no annual cap, making it worth exploring alongside the H-1B path.
Get your employer moving on the LCA early
The Labor Condition Application must be certified by the Department of Labor before your H-1B petition can be filed. This step takes around seven business days but can delay timelines if the employer initiates it late in the process.
Clarify your degree equivalency upfront
Australian three-year design degrees and international qualifications may require a credential evaluation to confirm U.S. bachelor's equivalency. Resolve this before the petition is filed to avoid a Request for Evidence that adds weeks to processing.
Target employers with a sponsorship track record
Some design studios and product companies sponsor visas regularly while others have never navigated the process. Focusing your search on employers with prior LCA filings reduces friction and signals they already understand what the process involves.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does a Principal Designer role qualify as a specialty occupation for H-1B purposes?
Generally yes, provided the employer requires a bachelor's degree or higher in design, human-computer interaction, visual communication, or a closely related field as a baseline. Roles where any bachelor's degree satisfies the requirement regardless of field can face scrutiny. The more clearly the job description ties the position to a specific body of theoretical knowledge, the stronger the petition.
How common is H-1B sponsorship for Principal Designer positions?
Design leadership roles at mid-size and large tech companies, agencies, and product companies do receive H-1B visa sponsorship with reasonable frequency. Companies like Apple, Google, and Microsoft regularly file LCAs for senior design roles. Sponsorship is less common at smaller studios without an established immigration program. You can browse Principal Designer roles with confirmed sponsorship on Migrate Mate.
Can I qualify for an O-1 visa as a Principal Designer?
Yes, if your work meets the extraordinary ability standard. Qualifying evidence could include industry awards such as a D&AD Pencil or Fast Company Innovation Award, judging design competitions, being cited in major publications, or leading design on a widely recognized product. The O-1A has no cap or lottery, making it a practical alternative if your profile supports it.
What if my degree is in a field adjacent to design, like psychology or architecture?
Adjacent degrees can support an H-1B petition when the connection to the role is well-argued. A psychology degree is defensible for a Principal Designer focused on user research or behavioral design. Architecture or fine arts backgrounds are harder to connect to product design without supplementary coursework. Your employer's immigration attorney should assess the specific degree-to-role alignment before filing.
Does Principal Designer experience abroad count toward my U.S. visa eligibility?
International work experience is fully creditable and often strengthens a petition by demonstrating a sustained career at a senior level. For H-1B purposes, three years of specialized experience can substitute for one year of university education under the three-for-one rule. For O-1A, international recognition, awards, and publications carry significant weight regardless of where the work was done.
What is the prevailing wage requirement for sponsored Principal Designer jobs?
U.S. employers sponsoring a visa must pay at least the prevailing wage, which is what workers in the same role, area, and experience level typically earn. The Department of Labor sets this rate to make sure companies aren't hiring foreign workers simply because they'd accept lower pay than a U.S. worker. It varies by job title, location, and experience. You can look up current prevailing wage rates for any occupation and location using the OFLC Wage Search page.