Principal Designer

The design decisions you make will determine whether millions of Americans can access college. You’ll shape the future of studentaid.gov — the system that processes $120 billion in federal aid each year.

You’ll own design strategy and user experience for systems that handle:

Over 10M applications in a 6-month window with brutal traffic spikes and unforgiving deadlines

Complex workflows serving students, parents, and financial aid administrators

Policy requirements that change constantly but must be implemented perfectly

Accessibility standards that aren’t optional — mistakes prevent real students from accessing aid

Multi-touchpoint experiences spanning web applications, mobile, partner integrations, and support channels

This is a hands-on design leadership role — you’ll conduct user research, map journeys, design solutions, and lead design direction across teams. The specific tools or process doesn’t matter — we need designers who can ship experiences that work for real students. Tasks may include:

Own design strategy for critical FAFSA features used by millions of families

Conduct user research to understand where families struggle and why

Map complex user journeys balancing policy constraints, user needs, and technical feasibility

Design systems and patterns that enable consistent, accessible experiences across teams

Align stakeholders across engineering, policy, legal, and leadership

Remove blockers preventing teams from shipping

We’re looking for designers who’ve shipped at scale and led without authority — typically a strong Principal Designer at a top tech company or design leader at a high-growth startup, with experience in most of the following:

You won’t have direct reports, but you’ll advocate for users while steering cross-functional, cross-agency teams with engineering, policy, comms, contractor partners, and legal in the mix to solve the hardest problems.

Owned design strategy and shipped features for systems serving millions of users

Led cross-functional teams through ambiguous, complex design problems

Made hard trade-off decisions balancing user needs, policy constraints, and technical feasibility

Conducted user research that fundamentally changed what teams built

Designed for accessibility as a core practice, ensuring compliance benefits real users

Our interview process is fully remote, consisting of 3-5 conversations that assess work experience, fit, and technical skills.