Sr. Principal Designer

About the Role

We are seeking a distinguished Sr. Principal Designer to join our team as a high-level Individual Contributor. This role is the pinnacle of our design IC track, operating at the Senior Director level. You will not manage a team of direct reports; instead, you will manage complex problem spaces, drive holistic systems thinking, and elevate the craft of our design organization.

You are a master of your craft, a visionary systems thinker, and a strategic partner to our stakeholders. You have been in the industry long enough to have seen trends come and go, allowing you to anchor your work in timeless design principles, deep behavioral research, and measurable business outcomes. You possess a strong, well-founded point of view and the strategic alignment skills to bring stakeholders along on the journey.

What You Will Do:

Vision & Holistic Systems Thinking

• Define and drive the overarching user experience vision across our most complex and critical product ecosystems.
• Connect the dots across disparate product lines, ensuring a seamless, holistic, and unified user journey from end to end.
• Architect scalable design systems and interaction paradigms that anticipate future business needs and technological advancements.

Craft Obsession & Execution

• Act as the ultimate standard-bearer for design quality. You sweat the details and are obsessed with the micro-interactions as much as the macro-journeys.
• Get your hands dirty. While you operate strategically, you still love the craft and will actively create high-fidelity prototypes, journey maps, and architectural frameworks to demonstrate your vision.
• Push the boundaries of what is possible, bringing innovative, world-class design solutions to market that redefine industry standards.

Strategic Influence & Stakeholder Management

• Partner directly senior level stakeholders to align design strategy with core business objectives.
• Navigate complex organizational dynamics with ease. You can effectively manage stakeholders, resolve conflicting priorities, and drive alignment without relying on hierarchical authority.
• Present and defend design decisions with a compelling narrative, grounded heavily in qualitative research, quantitative data, and market strategy.

Research-Grounded Innovation

• Champion a deeply research-driven approach. You don't just design based on intuition; you actively partner with (and sometimes lead) UX Research to uncover foundational human truths.
• Translate ambiguous behavioral insights into concrete, actionable, and innovative design architectures.

Mentorship & Design Culture

• Act as a multiplier for the design organization. While you have no direct reports, you will mentor Lead and Senior designers, elevating their strategic thinking and craft.
• Foster a culture of rigorous design critique, continuous learning, and intellectual curiosity.

What We Are Looking For

• Experience: 15+ years of experience in UX, Product Design, or HCI, with a proven track record of operating at a Principal, Senior Principal, or Distinguished level.
• Portfolio: A world-class portfolio demonstrating profound systems thinking, mastery of craft, and the ability to solve highly complex, multi-faceted systemic problems at an enterprise scale.
• Design Advocacy & Strategic Alignment: You command a room through expertise rather than title. You are exceptional at building consensus among C-suite leaders and translating complex, systems-level design thinking into clear business value.
• Conviction & Humility: You have a strong, defensible point of view, but you hold your opinions loosely. You are eager to be proven wrong by data or user feedback.
• Deep Research Literacy: Expert ability to synthesize complex qualitative and quantitative data into clear design directives.
• Resilience: You thrive in ambiguity and have the grit to drive long-term, multi-year design transformations across a matrixed organization.

Why Join Us?

At this level, you aren't just designing a product; you are shaping the future of our company's relationship with its users. If you are deeply passionate about the craft of UX, love solving the hardest systemic problems, and want the autonomy and influence of an executive without the operational overhead of people management, this is the role for you

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Who are we?

At Gartner, Inc. (NYSE:IT), we guide the leaders who shape the world.

Our mission relies on expert analysis and bold ideas to deliver actionable, objective business and technology insights, helping enterprise leaders and their teams succeed with their mission-critical priorities.

Since our founding in 1979, we’ve grown to 20,000 associates globally who support over 13,000 client enterprises in ~90 countries and territories. We do important, interesting and substantive work that matters. That’s why we hire associates with the intellectual curiosity, energy and drive to want to make a difference. The bar is unapologetically high. So is the impact you can have here.

What makes Gartner a great place to work?

Our vast, virtually untapped market potential offers limitless opportunities – opportunities that may not even exist right now – for you to grow professionally and flourish personally. How far you go is driven by your passion and performance.

We hire remarkable people who collaborate and win as a team. Together, our singular, unifying goal is to deliver results for our clients.

Our teams are inclusive and composed of individuals from different geographies, cultures, religions, ethnicities, races, genders, sexual orientations, abilities and generations.

We invest in great leaders who bring out the best in you and the company, enabling us to multiply our impact and results. This is why, year after year, we are recognized worldwide as a great place to work.

Gartner is the world authority on AI

At Gartner, you’ll join a company at the very center of the AI revolution. Gartner has proactive, objective guidance throughout clients’ AI journeys. We set the standard for how organizations leverage artificial intelligence to drive meaningful impact. You’ll have access to unmatched resources, expertise, and technology, and play a key role in helping Gartner and our clients innovate and grow as we leverage AI to transform business and technology landscapes.

It’s an exciting time to be at Gartner, with limitless opportunities to make a real impact, grow your skills, and build a lasting, meaningful career in a field that’s reshaping the way we operate. If you’re passionate about AI and want to be part of a team that’s guiding the leaders who shape the world, Gartner is the place for you.

What do we offer?

Gartner offers world-class benefits, highly competitive compensation and disproportionate rewards for top performers.

In our hybrid work environment, we provide the flexibility and support for you to thrive — working virtually when it's productive to do so and getting together with colleagues in a vibrant community that is purposeful, engaging and inspiring.

Ready to grow your career with Gartner? Join us.

Gartner believes in fair and equitable pay. A reasonable estimate of the base salary range for this role is 136,000 USD - 189,000 USD. Please note that actual salaries may vary within the range, or be above or below the range, based on factors including, but not limited to, education, training, experience, professional achievement, business need, and location. In addition to base salary, employees will participate in either an annual bonus plan based on company and individual performance, or a role-based, uncapped sales incentive plan. Our talent acquisition team will provide the specific opportunity on our bonus or incentive programs to eligible candidates. We also offer market leading benefit programs including generous PTO, a 401k match up to $7,200 per year, the opportunity to purchase company stock at a discount, and more.

The policy of Gartner is to provide equal employment opportunities to all applicants and employees without regard to race, color, creed, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, citizenship status, age, national origin, ancestry, disability, veteran status, or any other legally protected status and to seek to advance the principles of equal employment opportunity.

Gartner is committed to being an Equal Opportunity Employer and offers opportunities to all job seekers, including job seekers with disabilities. If you are a qualified individual with a disability or a disabled veteran, you may request a reasonable accommodation if you are unable or limited in your ability to use or access the Company’s career webpage as a result of your disability. You may request reasonable accommodations by calling Human Resources at +1 (203) 964-0096 or by sending an email to [email protected].

Job Requisition ID:112037

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