UX Strategy Lead at Microsoft Corporation

Overview

In Consumer Marketing, we transform how customers discover, compare, and take action on Windows, Surface, and Copilot on the web.

We are seeking a UX Strategy Lead to create a coherent, customer-first experience system across the consumer web portfolio. This role owns UX patterns and guidance, journey strategy, information architecture (IA), and a practical user-testing program that validates decisions early, reduces rework, and raises the experience quality bar across redesigns, launches, and evergreen journeys.

Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. As employees we come together with a growth mindset, innovate to empower others, and collaborate to realize our shared goals. Each day we build on our values of respect, integrity, and accountability to create a culture of inclusion where everyone can thrive at work and beyond.

In alignment with our Microsoft values, we are committed to cultivating an inclusive work environment for all employees to positively impact our culture every day.

Responsibilities

• Own the portfolio UX system and quality bar: Define and govern scalable UX standards across sites and hubs, ensuring experiences feel cohesive, learnable, and consistent across journeys and modules.

• Own the UX style guide and interaction patterns: Establish interaction standards, component behaviors, states, micro-interactions, and accessibility intent. Publish usage guidance that reduces one-off UX solutions.

• Drive buildable pattern adoption with Design and Dev: Partner with Web Design and Web Development to translate UX patterns into design specs and reusable components (variants, states, responsiveness), with clear acceptance criteria.

• Lead end-to-end journey strategy for priority cohorts: Map target journeys (entry points, decision points, content needs, handoffs), identify friction, and define the intended experience flow across acquisition, education, comparison, and conversion moments.

• Own IA, sitemap, and taxonomy governance: Define IA principles, navigation models, page hierarchy, and taxonomy across properties. Ensure structure supports customer comprehension, scalable content operations, and discoverability.

• Own a practical user testing and validation program: Define the testing strategy (qual and quant), protocols, recruitment approach (as applicable), and cadence. Run tests that validate UX and journey decisions at key milestones.

• Conduct usability and heuristic reviews to reduce rework: Provide early-stage UX assessments on wireframes, prototypes, and final designs to catch issues before build and reduce late-stage churn.

• Accessibility partnership and validation: Ensure UX patterns are accessible by design and partner on validation and remediation priorities with Accessibility and Engineering stakeholders.

• Experience governance and launch readiness: Establish UX checkpoints and acceptance criteria for redesigns, launches, and net-new modules. Drive “experience ready” sign-offs as part of launch readiness.

• Synthesize insights into decisions and requirements: Translate findings into prioritized recommendations, documented decision records, and clear requirements for Design, Content, and Engineering backlogs.

• Embody our Culture (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/about/corporate-values) and Values (https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/culture)

Qualifications

Required/Minimum Qualifications

• Master's Degree in Industrial Design, Product Design, Human Computer Interaction, User Experience, Interaction Design, or related field AND 4+ years experience working in product or service design

• OR Bachelor's Degree in Industrial Design, Product Design, Human Computer Interaction, User Experience, Interaction Design, or related field AND 5+ years experience working in product or service design

• OR equivalent experience (e.g., demonstrated experience working in product or service design or using design thinking to solve problems).

Additional or Preferred Qualifications

• Master's Degree in Industrial Design, Product Design, Human Computer Interaction, User Experience, Interaction Design, or related field AND 6+ years experience working in product or service design

• OR Bachelor's Degree in Industrial Design, Product Design, Human Computer Interaction, User Experience, Interaction Design, or related field AND 8+ years experience working in product or service design

• OR equivalent experience (e.g., demonstrated experience working in product or service design or using design thinking to solve problems).

• 8+ years of experience driving UX strategy across high-traffic, consumer-facing web properties with complex journeys and multiple stakeholders.

• Experience owning journey strategy and translating customer needs into practical, buildable UX requirements.

• Experience defining and scaling UX patterns, guidance, or design system behaviors across multiple products or web properties.

• Experience with IA, taxonomy, navigation design, and content structures for large-scale sites or hubs.

• Experience designing and running user testing, synthesizing insights, and driving outcomes through cross-functional partners and partnering with measurement teams to validate UX changes

• Experience with accessibility fundamentals (for example: Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) intent), and experience partnering to validate and remediate issues.

• Experience operating within a governed enterprise environment with formal review processes, compliance requirements, and cross-org dependency management.

Product Design IC4 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $119,800 - $234,700 per year. There is a different range applicable to specific work locations, within the San Francisco Bay area and New York City metropolitan area, and the base pay range for this role in those locations is USD $158,400 - $258,000 per year.

Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here:

https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-corporate-pay

This position will be open for a minimum of 5 days, with applications accepted on an ongoing basis until the position is filled.

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, citizenship, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, immigration status, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran or military status, race, ethnicity, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable local laws, regulations and ordinances. If you need assistance with religious accommodations and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations. (https://careers.microsoft.com/v2/global/en/accessibility.html)