Principal UX Designer

About the role

We're looking for a Principal UX Designer to define what human-AI collaboration looks like in security operations — and set the design standard for the category.

This is a principal individual contributor role embedded in product/engineering trios. You'll own the UX for some of the most complex and consequential workflows in security operations: investigations, threat hunting, detection strategy, and governed response. You'll lead discovery, shape solutions, and be accountable for whether the experience actually works for practitioners under pressure.

You will not be handed polished requirements to execute. You'll help discover the problem, define the right solution, and own whether it lands. You’ll report to the Head of Product.

What you'll do

• Serve as design lead in cross-functional product trios alongside product and engineering, owning workflow understanding, usability risk, and customer experience outcomes.
• Lead and participate in customer discovery: interviews, usability sessions, beta feedback synthesis, and practitioner research with SOC analysts, detection engineers, and security managers.
• Own AI interaction design: define how customers review, trust, govern, and contest AI-completed security work across all product surfaces — evidence visibility, uncertainty communication, human override, and auditability.
• Translate complex SOC workflows into experiences that are intuitive, efficient, and trustworthy under real operational conditions.
• Build prototypes that validate concepts before engineering investment. Claude Code and rapid prototyping fluency are a plus.
• Establish and evolve scalable design patterns and a growing design system.
• Contribute to the product operating model: help define what good discovery, design review, and release look like at Dropzone.
• Represent design in strategic product and roadmap discussions with executives, customers, and cross-functional partners.

Requirements

• 10+ years of UX/product design experience, with at least 3 years in senior or principal IC roles.
• Deep experience designing complex, high-stakes enterprise workflows. Security operations experience is a strong plus; if you're new to the domain, you need to show you develop genuine practitioner empathy fast.
• A portfolio demonstrating outcomes, not just craft — design decisions that changed measurable behavior, not just designs that got approved.
• Strong discovery skills: user research, synthesis, workshop facilitation, and problem framing at the front end of ambiguity.
• Strong opinions about AI UX — specifically evidence display, human control, uncertainty communication, and the difference between automation that builds trust and automation that erodes it.
• Ability to work across the full fidelity range: rough concept sketches to drive alignment, detailed flows to derisk engineering, pixel-quality work when it matters.
• Strong communication and storytelling skills with the ability to influence executives and technical teams.
• A preference for focused ownership over distributed coordination. You do your best work deeply embedded in a problem with a small, accountable team.

Preferred

• Cybersecurity or security operations domain experience.
• Experience at Series A–C stage companies with small, fast-moving product teams.
• Hands-on prototyping fluency including code-based tools.
• Experience defining or significantly contributing to a design system.
• Familiarity with JTBD frameworks, continuous discovery, and outcome-oriented product operating models.

Work Environment/Travel

We are a 100% remote company where you will work from your home with company-provided equipment to set you up for success. Semi-frequent travel to professional office settings and other events locally and nationally; some overnight travel expected.

Compensation

In the spirit of pay transparency, we are excited to share the base salary range below, exclusive of fringe benefits or potential bonuses. If you are hired at Dropzone your final base salary compensation will be determined based on factors such as geographic location, skills, education, and/or experience. In addition to those factors, we believe in the importance of pay equity and consider internal equity of our current team members as a part of any final offer. Please keep in mind that hiring at the maximum of the range would not be typical to allow for future and continued salary growth. We also offer a generous benefits package, including company paid health insurance, 401K Plan with employer match, Self-Managed PTO, parental leave, and more.