Principal Product Designer, Core

About the role

This role focuses on the core product experiences at Chess.com, a platform serving a global community of chess players. The Principal Product Designer will be responsible for creating intuitive and polished interfaces for both web and mobile, utilizing the company's existing design system. This involves a comprehensive approach, from initial concept development through to final implementation, ensuring that designs are effectively translated into code.

Collaboration is a key aspect of this position, requiring close partnership with product, engineering, and leadership teams to define problems and co-create effective solutions. The designer will need to clearly articulate design decisions, grounding them in rationale, heuristics, and user insights. A significant part of the role also involves building interactive prototypes to test ideas efficiently, leveraging agentic tools to streamline this process.

Success in this role means not only delivering high-quality designs but also driving systemic improvements across the design function. The Principal Product Designer is expected to lead design critiques, mentor other designers, and consistently raise the overall craft standards within the team. This requires a strong sense of ownership and responsibility for the design outcomes and their impact on the user experience.

The annual salary for this position ranges from $92,000 to $149,500 USD.

Skills that matter here

• UI design: This role requires mastery of UI design fundamentals to create polished and intuitive interfaces for web and mobile.
• UX design: The designer will be responsible for the overall user experience of core Chess.com products, ensuring effective and user-centric solutions.
• Figma: Figma is used for designing interfaces and building interactive prototypes to test ideas quickly.
• prototyping: Building interactive prototypes is essential for sharing and testing design ideas efficiently.
• design systems: The role involves designing polished interfaces using Chess.com’s existing design system and contributing to its improvement.
• agentic tools: The designer will leverage tools like Cursor, Claude Code, and Figma Make to build interactive prototypes and streamline the design process.

Who this role suits

• A designer with a decade or more of experience in consumer-facing products or games.
• Someone who can influence decisions across various teams, including product, engineering, and leadership.
• An individual who excels at teaching and applying design standards at a team level.
• A person with a strong sense of ownership and pride in their design craft.

From the employer

• Own the design of core Chess.com product experiences
• Partner closely with Product, Engineering, Copywriters, and leadership to help define the problem and build effective product experiences together
• Design polished, intuitive interfaces for web and mobile using Chess.com’s design system
• Present your design proposals and clearly articulate your decisions, backing them up with contextual rationale, heuristics, and user insights where possible
• Build interactive prototypes to share and quickly test ideas using agentic tools like Cursor, Claude Code, and Figma Make
• Own your projects from initial concept through to implementation and help ensure design-to-code alignment throughout the process
• Identify and drive systemic design improvements
• Lead design critique, mentor other designers, and consistently raise the craft bar across the whole team

• 10+ years designing consumer-facing products or games
• A portfolio of your best design work that demonstrates an expertise of interface and user experience design
• Mastery of UI design fundamentals including typography, color, layout, visual hierarchy, alignment, contrast, and interactivity
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Ability to influence decisions across Product, Engineering, and leadership
• A track record of teaching and applying these standards at a team level
• Leveraging agentic tools like Cursor, Claude Code, and Figma Make in your design process
• A sense of ownership, pride, and responsibility for your craft

• Remote work
• Full-time employment
• Salary range: $92,000 – $149,500 USD