Principal Designer Role at Workiva - $315K + RSUs in Columbus
Career & Market Insight
This is a Principal-level individual contributor role at a publicly traded enterprise SaaS company — a rare opportunity to own the visual direction of a design system at scale. The dual mandate (design system leadership + executive/conference visual work) means you'll build both deep craft expertise and high-visibility stakeholder influence skills simultaneously.
Compensation benchmark: At $190K–$315K base (plus RSUs and bonus), this is at or above market for Principal/Staff Designer roles in the US. Comparable roles at companies like Salesforce, Adobe, or Atlassian typically range $160K–$280K base, making this competitive even at the top of the market.
Skills you'll develop:
- AI-integrated design workflows — a highly in-demand, future-facing skill set
- Semantic token architecture and multi-tier design systems — transferable to any large-scale product org
- Executive communication and high-stakes visual storytelling
- Cross-functional influence without authority — critical for senior IC career paths
Green flags: Clear scope, well-defined dual focus, strong RSU component suggesting retention intent, and Workiva's position in a regulated-industry niche (finance, risk, sustainability) provides stability.
Potential consideration: The 20–25% travel requirement is higher than typical for a fully remote design role, which may affect work-life balance. Ensure the conference/executive work cadence aligns with your preferences before committing.
Overall, this is an excellent career-building role for a senior designer aiming for a Staff or Distinguished Designer trajectory in enterprise SaaS.
Headquarters: United States
URL: https://www.workiva.com/latam/
Workiva is looking for a Principal Experience Designer to shape the visual future of Unify, our enterprise design system. Unify powers the components, patterns, templates, accessibility standards, and shared experiences used across Workiva's B2B platform.
This is a dual-focus principal role. Roughly 60–70% of your time will be spent leading Unify's visual design direction: evolving its visual language, shaping token architecture, and creating the reference designs and guidance that help teams build consistently. The remaining 30–40% will focus on high-visibility visual work for major conferences, marketing partnerships, and executive audiences. That work is not separate from the system — it's part of the broader ecosystem of design in which Unify lives.
You will bring exceptional visual craft, strong systems thinking, and a practical point of view on how design systems need to evolve for AI-assisted design and prototyping.
What You'll Do
- Define and evolve Unify's visual language across typography, color, spacing, iconography, motion, and brand expression.
- Partner with the components sub-team and the patterns and templates sub-team to ensure visual design is applied consistently and intentionally across every asset.
- Partner with product design, product management, and engineering teams to ensure product experience decisions translate faithfully from system to production.
- Maintain a scalable, semantic token architecture that supports consistent experiences across products and over time.
- Create and maintain a library of reference designs — full-screen examples that demonstrate how Unify should be applied in real product experiences.
- Own visual usage guidance and documentation that make intended use, constraints, and quality standards clear for designers, engineers, and AI-assisted workflows.
- Establish ongoing evaluation of AI-generated designs and prototypes, using what you learn to strengthen tokens, examples, and guidance before inconsistencies reach product teams.
- Lead visual design for select high-stakes moments, including major conferences, executive presentations, product vision work, and marketing partnerships.
- Coach designers and influence cross-functional partners through high-quality feedback, clear principles, and strong visual storytelling.
What You'll Need
Minimum Qualifications
- 10+ years of experience in product design, visual design, UX, or related fields, including significant work on platform or enterprise products.
- Bachelor's degree in Design, HCI, or a related field (or 8 years of experience and a Master's degree; or a PhD with 6 years of experience).
Preferred Qualifications
- A portfolio demonstrating exceptional visual craft and the ability to translate a visual point of view into scalable product systems.
- Hands-on experience with AI-assisted design or prototyping workflows, with a clear perspective on their opportunities and limitations.
- Experience defining or evolving a design system's visual language, including tokens, components, patterns, and documentation.
- Strong ability to create compelling product narratives for senior leaders and high-visibility audiences.
- Experience partnering closely with engineers and working through the tradeoffs between design intent, system health, and implementation.
- A track record of influencing and coaching teams without relying on 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.
Travel Requirements & Working Conditions
- Up to 20–25% travel required to meet with teams, partners, and customers.
- Reliable internet connection required for remote or hybrid work environments.
How You'll Be Rewarded
- Salary range in the US: $190,000.00 – $315,000.00
- A discretionary bonus typically paid annually
- Restricted Stock Units granted at time of hire
- 401(k) match and comprehensive employee benefits package
The salary range represents the low and high end of the salary range for this job in the US. Minimums and maximums may vary based on location. The actual salary offer will carefully consider a wide range of factors, including your skills, qualifications, experience, and other relevant factors.
Why Join Workiva
Workiva is the platform designed to bring confidence, control, and a competitive edge to the world's most complex organizations. Our AI-powered platform unifies finance, risk, and sustainability on a single, secure foundation — ensuring data is trusted, traceable, and ready to act on. With an unbroken path from source to output, leaders gain confidence in their numbers, visibility into current and emerging risks, and the ability to move with speed and precision in a constantly changing world.
At Workiva, you'll bring technology to market that executives, boards, and regulators depend on. The work you do here helps organizations navigate uncertainty, maintain trust, and make decisions that stand up to scrutiny. If you're energized by meaningful challenges, inspired by collaborative teams, and motivated to help organizations turn uncertainty into advantage, we'd love to meet you.
Employment decisions are made without regard to age, race, creed, color, religion, sex, national origin, ancestry, disability status, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, citizenship status or any other protected characteristic.
Workiva is committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities. To request assistance with the application process, please email [email protected].
Workiva employees are required to undergo comprehensive security and privacy training tailored to their roles, ensuring adherence to company policies and regulatory standards.
Workiva supports employees in working where they work best — either from an office or remotely from any location within their country of employment.
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