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Agent guide: [/agents.md](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/agents.md). --- # Principal UX Designer - **Company:** appliedAI Initiative GmbH - **Location:** München, Germany (Remote available) - **Experience:** Expert - **Contract:** Temporary contract - **Skills:** Artificial Intelligence, Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, Production Code - **Published:** September 23, 2026 - **Apply:** https://startup.jobs/principal-ux-designer-m-f-x-ai-design-bei-appliedai-10150870 ## About the Role * Extensive experience, typically 10+ years, in experience design and design leadership, including leading or growing a multidisciplinary UX/design practice, with deep command of the end-to-end product design process from research through detailed interaction and visual design * Comfortable working at the boundary with engineering and being able to translate a design system into implementation-ready specifications and hold a high bar in review, without needing to ship production code yourself * A track record designing for complex, data-dense, operationally critical enterprise systems like industrial, infrastructure, control-room or comparable environments, delivered inside multi-stakeholder programs * Proven experience establishing DesignOps, governance models, and design methodologies that raise experience maturity beyond your own projects with designing systems, quality gates, and process frameworks that other teams actually adopt * Experience designing for AI or data-heavy products is a strong plus - non-deterministic output, latency, trust, and explainability change the design problem fundamentally * A trusted strategic advisor in ambiguous, client-facing settings, facilitating workshops, navigating conflicting stakeholder interests, and delivering difficult messages diplomatically, with the credibility to operate from C-suite conversations down to the operators who use the system * Fluent in English, German a strong plus as part of our client work happens in German, * A highly qualified and motivated team of ~90 people is on a journey to change the rapidly evolving European AI Landscape ## Description Most AI projects don't fail on the model - they fail because nobody wants to use what was built. As our Principal UX Designer, you'll be the specialist authority who makes sure that never happens for our clients: the person our AI Engineers, AI Consultants, and client teams turn to when the experience layer of an engagement is the hardest part of the problem, and when trustworthy, responsible AI needs an interface people actually trust. You'll operate at the intersection of individual client engagements - spanning DAX corporations to leading "Mittelstand" businesses - and appliedAI's broader design practice, working closely with adjacent teams such as Change & Enablement and Trustworthy AI to turn deep UX expertise into real-world impact. Your tasks will include: * Own the user experience strategy across our most demanding client AI engagements - from discovery and early concept through validated, handover-ready designs that clients' engineering teams can build with confidence * Shape UX and CX strategy across engagements - framing the actual problem before a single screen is designed, running discovery and moderated research sessions with operators, planners, and engineers, so design decisions rest on evidence rather than opinion * Define the interaction patterns agentic systems need - human-in-the-loop approval, latency and status communication, source attribution, uncertainty and error states, and safe defaults for irreversible actions * Set the standard for how we design and modernize complex, operationally critical systems - dense data, high stakes, long-lived workflows, and users who cannot afford to guess what the system just did * Drive adoption of shared design systems and component libraries across engagements - specifications and patterns that make the next project faster, not a slide deck about consistency * Establish DesignOps and design governance across our project portfolio - methodologies, review rituals, and quality bars that scale experience maturity across multi-stakeholder programs, with accessibility (WCAG 2.2 AA / EN 301 549) as a non-negotiable design requirement validated in close partnership with engineering * Own and evolve appliedAI's experience and design standards across the whole professional services organization, and raise the craft bar through review, critique, and mentoring ## Related Videos - [Designing the Future of Human<>Agent Collaboration](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1447-designing-the-future-of-human-agent-collaboration) - [Edit Your Future: Queerverse Radical AI](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/909-edit-your-future-queerverse-radical-ai) - [The What, Why, Who and How of accessibility on the web](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/403-the-what-why-who-and-how-of-accessibility-on-the-web) - [Insight into AI-Driven Design](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1016-insight-into-ai-driven-design) - [Dirty Tests And How To Clean Them](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/515-dirty-tests-and-how-to-clean-them) - [What If We Designed Employee Experience Like a Customer Journey?](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1824-what-if-we-designed-employee-experience-like-a-customer-journey) ## Related Articles - [The future is here: How artificial intelligence is influencing UX design](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/65-the-future-is-here-how-artificial-intelligence-is-influencing-ux-design) - [Navigating the AI Shift](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/629-navigating-the-ai-shift) - [The Most Popular IT Jobs on the Market](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/376-the-most-popular-it-jobs-on-the-market) - [Dev Digest 121 - AI goes offline](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/456-dev-digest-121-ai-goes-offline) - [The Biggest German Tech Companies](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/424-the-biggest-german-tech-companies) - [How to Become an AI Engineer](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/331-how-to-become-an-ai-engineer)