Staff Product Designer

Intro to Position

As a Staff Product Designer, you are a key leader in the product design process, from strategic concept development to inspecting pixels prior to launch. You will lead cross-functional design initiatives, drawing on a full spectrum of expertise spanning interaction design, product strategy, design systems, and prototyping.

This role champions design excellence across multidisciplinary project teams, partnering closely with researchers, product managers, and software engineers, while elevating the broader practice of design across the organization. Your mission is to shape accessible, elegant, and highly engaging digital experiences for millions of public media listeners and internal colleagues alike.

This is a union-represented role covered under the terms of a collective bargaining agreement with NABET-CWA DMU.

Responsibilities

• Design Strategy & Mission Alignment: Drive cross-organizational design strategy and product vision by translating audience insights into scalable digital experiences that align with NPR's public service mission and strengthen long-term audience relationships.
• End-to-End Mobile Product Discovery: Lead end-to-end product discovery and experience design for NPR’s next-generation mobile platform, guiding projects from opportunity framing and audience research through prototyping, validation, systems design, and launch.
• Personalization & Audience Engagement: Direct the user-experience strategy for NPR’s personalization engine overhaul, crafting adaptive, habit-forming digital experiences that increase audience engagement, retention, and trust while honoring public media values.
• Evidence-Driven Design Culture: Champion an evidence-driven design culture across product teams, using rapid experimentation, audience feedback, and measurable outcomes to validate ideas early and ground product decisions in actual audience behavior.
• Cross-Functional & External Collaboration: Partner closely with Product, Software Engineering, Research, Data, Newsroom/Editorial teams, and external UX consultants to align strategy, refine implementations, and define the future of NPR's digital portfolio.
• Design Systems & Scalability: Build, scale, and maintain robust, accessible design systems that harmonize and elevate the user experience across web, native mobile, and connected audio surfaces.
• Inclusive Design & Accessibility: Champion inclusive design principles and accessibility standards (WCAG) across all digital products to ensure NPR's platforms are universally accessible to diverse national audiences.
• Design Mentorship & Craft Excellence: Partner with mid-level and senior designers to provide constructive design critiques, foster professional growth, and uphold high visual and functional standards across initiatives.
• Workshop Facilitation & Co-Creation: Facilitate design thinking workshops, discovery sprints, and co-creation sessions with product, editorial, and technical stakeholders to drive collaborative problem-solving.
• Design Advocacy & Network Engagement: Present design strategies, product vision, and user-centered rationale clearly and persuasively to cross-functional teams, member station partners, and executive leadership.

The above duties and responsibilities are not an exhaustive list of required responsibilities, duties and skills. Other duties may be assigned, and this job description can be modified at any time.

Minimum Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience leading product design strategies and shipping scalable digital products across web and mobile ecosystems.
• 2+ years as a Staff, Principal, or equivalent senior individual contributor.
• Native mobile design expertise (iOS & Android) with a proven focus on adaptive experiences, responsive layouts, and comprehensive mobile design systems.
• Exceptional product judgment and systems thinking.
• Proven ability to design inclusive interfaces that comply with WCAG and web accessibility standards.
• Strong proficiency in design thinking frameworks and agile methodologies, integrating user-centered practices seamlessly into delivery cycles.
• Versatility across low- to high-fidelity prototyping techniques to rapidly validate ideas and align product teams.
• Strong track record of designing across complex contexts, including both consumer-facing platforms and internal enterprise tools.

Preferred Qualifications

• Demonstrated experience utilizing product analytics tools (e.g., Google Analytics, Amplitude) to evaluate user behavior, measure performance, and guide iterative design decisions.
• Experience scoping, estimating, and structuring design work streams for multi-designer projects.

Required Skills/Competencies

• Design Communication: Exceptional ability to articulate complex design decisions clearly and solicit constructive, actionable feedback from cross-functional partners.
• Visual & Interaction Mastery: Mastery of visual design principles, information architecture, interaction patterns, and modern design tools (e.g., Figma).
• Pragmatic Scope Management: Strong ability to balance innovative design solutions with technical constraints and project timelines, accurately scoping project workload.
• Technical Framework Literacy: Solid understanding of modern technology frameworks that power digital platforms (e.g., APIs, content management systems, mobile SDKs).
• Facilitation & Influence: Demonstrated ability to lead co-creation sessions and influence product strategy without direct managerial authority.
• Curiously & Humility: Bringing a builder’s mindset to complex product challenges.

Education Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Interaction Design, Digital Media, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.

Work Location & Requirements

• NPR Remote-Permitted: This is a remote-permitted role. This role is based out of our Washington, D.C. office, but the employee may choose to work on a remote basis from a location that NPR approves. You will have the option of working (a) remotely from a location of your choosing within the United States that is supported by NPR; (b) on-site at an NPR facility, based on the availability of desks and approval from NPR; or (c) a combination of both. Regardless of where you choose to work from, you may be expected to travel to other locations from time to time to perform the duties of your position.