Job Description
Location : Santa Clara, CA
About Eightfold
Eightfold's mission is to unlock human potential through AI. As the world moves from software tools to intelligent agents, we are building the next generation of experiences that help organizations hire, develop, retain, and empower talent at scale.
We believe the future of work will be powered by collaboration between humans and AI agents. Our products are evolving beyond workflows and dashboards into intelligent systems that proactively guide decisions, automate tasks, and help people achieve better outcomes.
We're looking for a Principal Design Strategist to help define that future.
About the Role
This is not a traditional UX strategy role. We're looking for a hands-on builder, strategist, and systems thinker who can identify opportunities, envision future experiences, and rapidly bring ideas to life through prototypes.
You will help shape how AI agents collaborate with recruiters, hiring managers, employees, managers, HR leaders, and candidates. You'll define when agents should act, when they should ask, how they should explain decisions, and how they can create value while maintaining trust and transparency.
The ideal candidate believes that prototypes are more powerful than presentations and that customer feedback is more valuable than internal opinions.
You won't simply design screens; you'll help design the future operating system for work.
What You'll Do
Define the Future of Agentic Experiences
- Shape the vision for Human + AI collaboration across the Eightfold platform.
- Identify opportunities where AI agents can automate, assist, recommend, coach, or act autonomously.
- Create future-state concepts that reimagine how work gets done.
- Partner with Product and Engineering leaders to influence long-term strategy and investment decisions.
- Define how AI can help recruiters, hiring managers, employees, managers, and HR teams make better decisions and achieve better outcomes.
Lead Through Prototypes
- Rapidly transform ideas into interactive experiences.
- Build prototypes that help customers and stakeholders experience the future before it's built.
- Use AI-native tools to explore agent behaviors, workflows, multimodal interactions, and new product concepts.
- Validate concepts early and reduce product risk through experimentation.
- Create proofs of concept that influence roadmap decisions and investment priorities.
Design Human + AI Systems
- Define frameworks for:
- Agent behavior and decision making
- Memory and context management
- Trust and explainability
- Permissions and governance
- Human oversight and intervention
- Escalation models
- Agent-to-agent collaboration
- Establish patterns for conversational, proactive, multimodal, and workflow-based experiences.
- Create principles that guide how agents interact with users across the Eightfold platform.
Drive Strategic Discovery
- Work directly with customers to uncover unmet needs and future opportunities.
- Conduct research and synthesize insights into actionable product strategies.
- Explore emerging trends in AI, talent intelligence, workforce transformation, and enterprise software.
- Translate customer problems into product opportunities and investment recommendations.
- Facilitate customer co-creation and innovation workshops.
Influence Across the Organization
- Facilitate visioning workshops and strategic design sessions.
- Help teams think beyond current workflows and interfaces.
- Mentor designers, product managers, and leaders on AI-first experience design.
- Champion human-AI interaction principles across the organization.
- Serve as a thought leader on Agentic AI and the future of work experiences.
What you Bring
- 10+ years of experience in Product Design, Design Strategy, Service Design, Product Innovation, UX, or related disciplines.
- Experience building AI-powered products.
- Experience designing conversational, voice, or multimodal experiences.
- Experience with talent, HR, recruiting, workforce, productivity, or enterprise platforms.
- Proven track record shaping product direction and influencing executive stakeholders.
- Experience leading highly ambiguous, zero-to-one initiatives.
- Strong systems-thinking and opportunity-framing abilities.
- Experience working on enterprise software, SaaS platforms, AI products, or complex workflow systems.
- Demonstrated ability to connect customer needs, technology capabilities, and business outcomes.
- AI-Native Mindset. You are deeply curious about AI and actively experiment with emerging technologies. You have working knowledge in any of the following:
- Generative AI
- Large Language Models (LLMs)
- Agentic Systems
- Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)
- Tool Calling
- Memory Architectures
- Multi-Agent Workflows
- AI Evaluation Frameworks
- Human-in-the-Loop Systems
- Responsible AI Principles
- Technical expertise is not required, but strong AI fluency is essential.
Bonus Points
- Startup founder, innovation lab, or zero-to-one product experience.
- Strong storytelling and executive communication skills.
Pay Transparency
Please note this role is categorized as hybrid in Santa Clara, CA The base salary ranges below are provided for pay transparency. Base pay is only one piece of our total compensation package as this role may be eligible for bonus and equity awards. Compensation varies depending on a number of factors including qualifications, skills, competencies, experience and zone. Zones are determined by location. Zone A is SF Bay Area, CA .
Zone A Base annual salary base range: $185,494 to $247,325 + discretionary annual bonus up to `20% + preIPO equity (stock options).
Hybrid Work @ Eightfold: We embrace a hybrid work model that aims to boost collaboration, enhance our culture, and drive innovation through a blend of remote and in-person work. We are committed to creating a dynamic and flexible work environment that nurtures the collaborative spirit of our team. Starting May 1st, 2025, employees residing near Santa Clara, CA return to the office 3X per week.
Eightfold.ai provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, veteran or disability status.
Experience our comprehensive benefits with family medical, vision and dental coverage, a competitive base salary, and eligibility for equity awards and discretionary bonuses or commissions.
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