Senior Product Designer, Casual Games

Microsoft Casual Games develops some of the most popular and enduring games in the world. From Solitaire to Sudoku, Minesweeper to Mahjong, for over 30 years Casual Games has delighted players of all ages with exciting, engaging gameplay on Windows, iOS, Android, and the Web.

Microsoft Casual Games is hiring aSenior Product Designerto support multiple products - both our live games, as well as exciting new titles currently in development. As part of our crossfunctional creative team,you'llcontribute to a diverse and successful set of live game projects, help define the design of new games, and collaborate with our crossfunctional, worldclass team to deliver intuitive and delightful experiences and contribute to the success of the studio.You'llwork closely with your fellow designers as well as our product, engineering, and art teams to design wireframes, user flows, UI components, and interactive prototypes to explore different layouts and interaction patterns. As a passionate advocate for our players,you'lldrive forward user research efforts by helping to plan, conduct interviews and moderate other research sessions, analyze and synthesize the data, and present key findings and recommendations to the team.You'llalso create stylistically consistent, visually compelling, and functional user interfaces that envelop an intuitive, delightful gameplay experience. Your designs will be usercentric, datadriven, and aligned withdesign bestpractices - and you will collaborate with our worldclass team to shepherd your designs from concept to reality.

This Senior Product Designer role blends handson UX (User Experience) and UI (User Interface) design with productlevel thinking, taking a holistic view of player experience, business outcomes, and delivery constraints across a portfolio of games. Beyond individual feature execution, this role requires strong judgment, prioritization, and ownership - balancing player needs with studio goals, development realities, and longterm product strategy.

This designer will partner closely with Design leadership to help coordinate and oversee multiple initiatives, represent design perspectives in crossfunctional discussions, and serve as a trusted point of continuity across projects. They will act as a design lead within meetings, reviews, and planning conversations, helping to ensure alignment, momentum, and followthrough when Design leadership is not present.

Microsoft's mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Asemployeeswe 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.

UX Design

Develop wireframes, information architecture, user flows, and interaction diagrams to explore a variety of design options (from "safe" to "unexpected") for game interfaces across PC, web, and mobile platforms. Create interactive prototypes in Figma to communicate complex interaction patterns and design concepts effectively. Design and deliver highquality UI assets, components, and documentation, ensuring consistency, accessibility, and alignment with the overall game aesthetic. Provide final assets for implementation,assistwith implementation, and own UX quality control to ensure UX and UI have been implemented according to designs. Make design decisions driven by user research, data analytics, and usability testing, ensuring that player needs and preferences are understood by the product team and prioritized appropriately. Drive forward user research efforts, contributing to planning, study design, data analysis, and presentation of findings and recommendations to the team.

Lead and guide design explorations across multiple solution paths, helping the team evaluate scope, complexity, and polish tradeoffs in service of delivery goals. Provide design direction and feedback to more junior designers, supporting their growth by helping refine concepts, improve craft quality, and prepare work for stakeholder reviews and approval. Ensure UX thinking and design intent are consistently carried from concept through implementation,identifyingrisks early and recommending adjustments as constraints evolve.

Product Design & Strategic Ownership

Own and advocate for the momenttomoment player experience, including clarity, pacing, feedback, progression, and overall "fun factor" across features and systems. Participate in the design and refinement of game features, mechanics, and systems in close collaboration with game design, product, and analytics partners, ensuring experiences are engaging, balanced, and aligned with player motivations. Evaluate how changes to features, flows, rewards, and progression impact player engagement, retention, and longterm satisfaction, and recommend adjustments based on play data, research insights, and qualitative feedback.Evaluate and audit existing games, features, and live products toidentifyexperience gaps, usability issues, and optimization opportunities; synthesize findings into clear, actionable recommendations grounded in player impact, ROI considerations, resource constraints, and delivery timelines. Take a portfoliolevel view across multiple products, helping to prioritize design efforts based on business value, player outcomes, and development capacity. Partner with product management, analytics, and research to assess the effectiveness of existing experiences and proposed solutions using both qualitative and quantitative inputs. Contribute to earlystage product definition by helping shape problem statements, experience principles, and success metrics before detailed design execution begins.

Collaboration & Communication

Cultivate an environment of clear and effective communication and collaboration by defining content strategy, crafting written content, articulating ideas, mediating negotiations, and resolving conflicts, all while fostering crossteam collaboration. Help tofacilitatebrainstorming sessions and workshops to answer critical business questions through design thinking, rapid prototyping, and testing ideas. Present design concepts and solutions to the team, incorporating feedback anditerating ondesigns to improve usability and player experience. Influence and present work effectively to amplify capabilities, expand design thinking, and broaden the impact of your work, and the work of others. Back decisions and recommendations with data and gather feedback in design reviews with teammates and stakeholders to improve project results. Influence both designer and nondesigner collaborators through focused, compelling communication and the ability to holistically balance user needs with business goals, studio priorities, and other factors.

Represent the design team in multidisciplinary meetings, planning sessions, and reviews, ensuring design perspectives, tradeoffs, and risks are clearly communicated and captured. Track key decisions, dependencies, and open questions related to design, and proactively communicate outcomes and next steps back to Design leadership and partner teams. Collaborate closely with production and engineering to help ensure ontime delivery, proactively addressing scope, sequencing, and process challenges that mayimpactdesign quality or implementation.

Design Leadership & Team Enablement

Act as a design lead for one or more initiatives, helping align designers, product managers, engineers, artists, and producers around shared goals and clear next steps. Support junior and midlevel designers by reviewing work, offering strategic and tactical feedback, and helping prepare narratives and presentations for stakeholder approvals. Help elevate the overall quality and consistency of design output across the studio by reinforcing standards, encouraging thoughtful critique, and modeling strong productdriven design practices.

Design Processes & Best Practices

Follow and advocate for design best practices, staying up to date with the latest trends and tools in the UX/UI and gaming industry. Develop prototypes to meet needs at hand (e.g., speed, depth, fidelity) and solve challenges. Present to the studio Art & Design team, studio leadership, and users to receive feedback and understand user needs.Use digital and physical tools to demonstrate design to stakeholders and gauge user needs.Bring stakeholders and peers into your work early and often and prototype to gain answers quickly. Proactivelyidentifyproblems and propose potential solutions to leadership. Balance ideal experience outcomes with practical constraints, making informed recommendations that support delivery while preserving a highquality player experience.Identifyopportunities to streamline workflows, reduce rework, and improve crossfunctional collaboration over time.

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Art, Writing, Behavioral Science, Data Science, Game Design, or related field AND 4+ years experience in game development and design, systems design, content production, or related field OR Associate's Degree in Computer Science, Art, Writing, Behavioral Science, Game Design, or related field AND 6+ years experience in game development and design, systems design, content production, or related field
  • OR equivalent experience.
• Have shipped at least 1 title released to consumers/shipped game.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Master's Degree in Arts, Humanities, Digital Communications, UX Design, Human Computer Interaction, Communications, English, Journalism, or related field AND 5+ years' experience working in product or service design OR Bachelor's Degree in Arts, Humanities, Digital Communications, UX Design, Human Computer Interaction, Communications, English, Journalism, or related field AND 7+ years' experience working in product or service design
  • OR equivalent experience.
• 3+ years creating designs and using design systems in Figma across multiple screen sizes.
• 2+ years prototyping in Figma, Framer, or equivalent software.
• Portfolio showcasing your design process, including wireframes, user research, user flows, UI design, and interaction design.
• 5+ years creating designs and using design systems in Figma, preferably across multiple screen sizes.
• 3+ years prototyping in Figma, Framer, or equivalent software.
• Portfolio that has clearly been designed with the viewer in mind, showcasing your design process, including wireframes, user research, user flows, UI design, and interaction design.
• Experience designing for multiple platforms, ensuring consistency and adaptability of designs across different screen sizes and interfaces.
• Familiarity with user research methods (e.g., user testing, surveys, data analysis) and the ability to apply findings to improve design decisions.
• Understanding of usercentered design principles, interaction design, and design systems.
• Experience owning design across multiple initiatives or products simultaneously, balancing depth of execution with portfoliolevel prioritization.
• Comfort representing design perspectives in crossfunctional product discussions, including roadmap reviews, tradeoff conversations, and delivery planning.
• Ability to work collaboratively in a fastpaced, agile development environment.
• Communication skills, with the ability to present and articulate design concepts clearly to team members.
• A passion for gaming and an understanding of how design impacts the overall player experience.
• Experience with accessibility standards and designing for inclusivity in gaming.