Principal UX Designer

The Trade Desk is a global technology company and the world’s leading independent platform for digital advertising, with nearly 4,000 employees across more than 30 offices. Our technology helps advertisers reach the right audiences across the open internet — from streaming TV and podcasts to mobile apps, news, and more. Advertising powers the content people love. By making it more transparent, effective, and responsible, we help support trusted journalism, quality entertainment, and creators worldwide. The world’s brands and agencies rely on us to reach their customers and grow their businesses responsibly. The scale of our platform brings unique technical challenges — from processing massive datasets in real time to building systems that operate reliably on a global scale. When you work here, your impact is worldwide. We welcome diverse perspectives, encourage curiosity, and build teams that learn from one another. If you’re driven to solve meaningful challenges, we’d love to meet you. Who We Are Looking For The Trade Desk is seeking a Principal UX Designer to define and drive the user experience vision for AI across our platform. This is a senior individual-contributor design leadership role for someone who can see around corners on what AI-powered experiences should feel like for advertisers and agency partners — and who can take that vision from concept through shipped, polished product. The Trade Desk is transforming the way advertising is bought, sold, and consumed as a global leader in the programmatic industry. As AI becomes a defining layer of how our customers plan, optimize, and make decisions on our platform, this role will shape what that experience looks and feels like: where AI should lead, where it should assist, and how it earns trust from sophisticated, data-driven users. Our industry is complicated, but we don’t believe our platform — or our AI — should be. As Principal Design Lead, you will own the end-to-end design vision and execution for AI experiences across The Trade Desk’s platform. You will bring a rare combination of strong UX craft, product thinking, and genuine fluency in how people work with AI — from conversational and agentic interfaces to predictive and generative experiences embedded directly in workflow. This is not a tooling or infrastructure role; it is a hands‑on design leadership role focused on the customer‑facing experience of AI itself. You will serve as a strategic design partner to Product, Engineering, Data Science, and UX Leadership, setting the experience bar for AI across the company. This role reports directly to the Vice President of UX Design and is a key member of the UX leadership team at The Trade Desk. What You Will Be Doing Define & Champion the AI Experience Vision Set the UX vision and design principles for how AI shows up across The Trade Desk platform — from assistive and predictive patterns to generative and agentic experiences Translate ambiguous AI capabilities into clear, compelling product experiences that make complex, data-dense decisions feel simple and trustworthy Define what “good” looks like for AI interaction design at The Trade Desk: when AI should act, when it should ask, and how it should explain itself Build and evangelize a point of view on human‑AI collaboration in advertising workflows, grounded in user research and real customer behavior Partner with UX Leadership to align the AI experience vision with broader product and company strateg Lead End-to-End Design Execution for AI Experiences Lead hands‑on, high‑fidelity design for flagship AI features — from early concept and prototyping through detailed interaction design and launch Design for the full spectrum of AI experience patterns: conversational interfaces, intelligent recommendations, automated workflows, and generative content surfaces Rapidly prototype AI‑powered concepts to test feasibility, gather feedback, and align stakeholders around a shared experience vision before heavy investment Drive user research and usability testing specific to AI experiences, including how users build trust, calibrate reliance, and recover from AI errors Partner closely with Data Science and Engineering to ensure model capabilities and UX vision evolve together, not in isolation Elevate Craft & Set the Bar for AI‑Native Interaction Design Set the craft standard for AI experience design across the UX organization, raising the bar on clarity, transparency, and trust in AI‑driven interactions Champion design patterns for explainability, confidence signaling, error states, and graceful degradation in AI features Ensure AI experiences are accessible, inclusive, and usable across a wide range of customer sophistication and contexts Provide critique and design direction on AI‑related work across the design team, acting as the go‑to expert and reviewer for AI experience quality Partner Cross‑Functionally to Embed AI Across the Platform Act as the primary design voice in AI strategy conversations with Product, Engineering, and Data Science leadership Identify high‑value opportunities to apply AI in service of better customer outcomes, not AI for its own sake Build trusted relationships with senior stakeholders and serve as a thought partner on where and how AI should show up in the product roadmap Represent the customer experience perspective in technical and data science discussions about model capability and behavior Champion AI‑Native Ways of Working Help shape and evangelize how design, product, and engineering work with AI — modeling AI‑assisted prototyping and craft, and sharing what works across teams Influence how the design system and engineering workflows evolve to enable AI‑native experiences — partnering with the teams who own tooling and platform, without owning the mandate itself Bring a strong, hands‑on point of view to where AI accelerates the work and where human judgment must stay in the loop Mentor & Grow Design Talent Mentor designers across the UX organization on AI experience design practices, research methods, and interaction patterns Lead by example through visible, hands‑on craft — modeling what excellent AI experience design looks like in practice Contribute to a shared point of view, vocabulary, and set of patterns that help the broader design team design for AI with confidence Represent TTD’s AI Experience Point of View Represent The Trade Desk at industry events and design conferences, sharing perspective on AI experience design in adtech Position TTD as a company at the forefront of trustworthy, customer‑centered AI experience design Contribute to broader UX and AI design community conversations, research, and thought leadership What You Bring to the Table Bachelor’s degree in Design, HCI, Cognitive Science, or a related field (Master’s preferred) 10+ years of experience in product design or UX design, with significant recent focus on AI‑powered or intelligent product experiences Proven track record shaping the end‑to‑end UX vision for AI features, from concept through shipped product, in a complex enterprise or platform‑based product Deep expertise in interaction design for AI experiences — including conversational UI, recommendation and prediction surfaces, generative content, and agentic workflows Strong command of Figma and modern prototyping tools, used in service of fast, high- f i- fidelity exploration of AI concepts Demonstrated experience designing for explainability, trust, and error recovery in AI or ML‑driven products Strong research instincts, with experience running or closely partnering on qualitative and quantitative research to validate AI experience decisions Strong executive presence, with experience presenting vision and direction to VP‑level and senior leadership Exceptional communication and storytelling skills, with the ability to translate technical AI concepts into a clear, compelling user experience narrative Experience partnering closely with Data Science and Engineering teams on model‑driven product experiences Ability to navigate ambiguity and drive clarity and alignment in complex, fast‑moving environments Working knowledge of machine learning concepts as they apply to UX — including model confidence, latency, and failure modes (preferred) Experience in adtech, martech, or enterprise SaaS with complex, data‑dense interfaces (preferred) Published thought leadership, talks, or case studies on AI experience design (preferred) Portfolio demonstrating AI experience design vision, hands‑on craft, and measurable impact on user trust and product outcomes Why This Role Matters At The Trade Desk, each opportunity to engage a consumer is unique. Our platform gives advertisers and agencies extraordinary power to describe and reach their target audiences. AI is rapidly becoming the layer that makes that power usable — surfacing the right insight, automating the right task, and helping customers make better decisions faster. How that AI feels to use — whether it earns trust, reduces friction, and respects the user’s judgment — is a design problem before it is a technology problem. As Principal Design Lead, you will shape the experience vision for AI at The Trade Desk, lead its execution end to end, and set the standard for what trustworthy, human‑centered AI design looks like in adtech. If you are energized by the intersection of design craft, user trust, and the transformative potential of AI — this is your role. The Trade Desk does not accept unsolicited resumes from search firm recruiters. Fees will not be paid in the event a candidate submitted by a recruiter without an agreement in place is hired; such resumes will be deemed the sole property of The Trade Desk. The Trade Desk is an equal opportunity employer. All aspects of employment will be based on merit, competence, performance, and business needs. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, marital status, age, national origin, ancestry, physical or mental disability, medical condition, pregnancy, genetic information, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, veteran status, or any other status protected under federal, state, or local law. [LA JOBS ONLY] The Trade Desk will consider qualified applicants with criminal histories for employment in a manner consistent with the requirements of the Los Angeles Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring, Ordinance No. 184652. [SF JOBS ONLY] Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records. At the Trade Desk, Base Salary is one part of our competitive total compensation and benefits package and is determined using a salary #J-18808-Ljbffr