Why This Job is Featured on The SaaS Jobs
Design leadership roles that sit at the intersection of AI, automation, and enterprise SaaS are becoming foundational as platforms move beyond dashboards into agentic workflows. This Principal Product Designer position is notable because it focuses on how AI capabilities are experienced inside an operations-centric SaaS product, where reliability, auditability, and user confidence materially shape adoption.
From a SaaS career perspective, the remit signals exposure to the full product system: interaction patterns for intelligent features, research into trust and transparency, and collaboration with product, engineering, and data science. Work like this tends to build durable expertise in designing for complex, high-stakes users—skills that translate across modern B2B SaaS categories as more products embed recommendations, automation, and conversational interfaces.
This role appears best suited to a senior designer who prefers setting direction rather than refining isolated screens, and who is comfortable influencing stakeholders across disciplines. It also fits someone motivated by technical audiences and platform-level coherence—establishing principles, patterns, and decision frameworks that can scale across multiple teams and product surfaces.
The section above is editorial commentary from The SaaS Jobs, provided to help SaaS professionals understand the role in a broader industry context.
Job Description
PagerDuty is seeking a Principal Product Designer to join our diverse, customer-focused team! As Principal Product Designer, you will join our UX team and lead design strategy for our AI and Automation team, partnering with senior leadership, product management, engineering, and data science teams. You will define the vision and execution for how AI agents, automation workflows, and intelligent insights are experienced across the PagerDuty Operations Cloud, ensuring our AI capabilities are intuitive, trustworthy, and transformative for technical operations teams. This is an exciting opportunity to pioneer the future of AI-driven operations at scale, shaping how thousands of organizations leverage autonomous agents and intelligent automation to prevent incidents, accelerate resolution, and improve operational resilience. The ideal candidate has deep expertise in AI/ML product design, a track record of leading design for complex technical products, and a passion for making cutting-edge technology accessible and valuable to practitioners.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
- Define and drive the design vision for PagerDuty's AI and automation capabilities, including AI agents
- Lead cross-functional collaboration with AI/ML engineers, product managers, and data scientists to translate complex AI capabilities into intuitive, trustworthy user experiences
- Establish design principles and patterns for AI transparency, explainability, and user control that build confidence in autonomous and semi-autonomous systems
- Mentor and guide designers across the organization on AI/UX best practices, fostering a culture of innovation and excellence
- Conduct strategic research to understand how technical teams adopt and trust AI-driven recommendations, automation, and insights in mission-critical contexts
- Partner with product leadership to shape the AI and automation roadmap, balancing innovation with user needs and technical feasibility
- Represent design in executive-level discussions and contribute to company-wide AI strategy and product positioning
BASIC QUALIFICATIONS
- 10+ years of experience in product design, UX design, or interaction design with a focus on complex technical products
- 3+ years of experience designing for AI/ML products, intelligent systems, automation platforms, or data-driven applications
- Demonstrated experience leading design strategy and influencing product direction
- Portfolio showcasing expertise in AI/UX, conversational interfaces, automation design, or intelligent agent experiences
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS
- Experience designing for developer tools, DevOps platforms, or technical operations products
- Deep understanding of AI/ML concepts including LLMs, generative AI, predictive models, and agentic systems
- Track record of establishing design systems, frameworks, or principles that scale across product teams
- Strong thought leadership through speaking, writing, or contributing to the design community
- Experience working in high-growth SaaS or enterprise software companies with complex technical audiences
PagerDuty is a flexible, hybrid workplace. We embrace and encourage in-person working as an integral part of our culture. Both our employees and external research tells us that co-located collaboration strengthens connections, drives innovation, and accelerates learning.
While this role is posted as remote, if you live within 80km of our Lisbon office, this role is expected to come into our Lisbon office 2 days per week, so you can thrive in your new role and fully embrace being a Dutonian! Alternatively, if you live outside the 80km radius from the Lisbon office, we expect you to visit our Lisbon office 1 day/month.
