Principal Product Designer, Games Discovery
Yahoo · United States · 2mo ago
A Little About Us
Yahoo is a global media and tech company that connects people to their interests. We reach nearly 900 million people around the world, bringing them closer to what they love—from finance and sports, to shopping, gaming, and news—through trusted products, content, and technology that fuel their day. For partners, we provide a full-stack platform that helps businesses amplify growth and build meaningful connections across advertising, search, and media.
Within Yahoo Games, our mission is to make games a natural extension of the daily Yahoo experience—easy to discover, fun to play, and rewarding to return to. We are building a modern casual games platform that combines high-quality content with strong platform features across desktop and mobile web.
A Lot About You
We are seeking a thoughtful and experienced Principal Product Designer (Games) to lead discovery and acquisition experiences across the Yahoo Games ecosystem.
This is a top-of-funnel role: your primary canvas is the moments before someone plays — the entry points, browse surfaces, and cross-property touchpoints across Yahoo News, Mail, Finance, and Sports that turn casual visitors into engaged players. You'll define how people find, choose, and return to games across the Yahoo platform.
You understand how games are marketed and why people adopt them. You think in acquisition and engagement funnels, and you know how to design surfaces that move people through them — from first impression to habit.
Critically, you have a sharp instinct for fun. You inject moments of delight, personality, and play into discovery experiences — making the path to a game feel as rewarding as the game itself. Your work doesn't just convert; it earns attention.
Familiarity with game engagement systems — progression, identity, community, retention — informs your thinking, but your expertise lives upstream: in the surfaces that bring people to the game in the first place. You thrive in an AI-augmented environment, actively using modern AI tools to accelerate design exploration and streamline cross-functional delivery.
Your Day at Yahoo
Own the discovery experience for Yahoo Games — designing the surfaces, entry points, and moments that move people from curious to playing.
Make discovery feel worth discovering. Bring a sense of fun, personality, and delight to every surface — from a first impression on Yahoo News to a returning player's daily entry point. The path to a game should feel like part of the game.
Design and optimize acquisition entry points across the Yahoo ecosystem that introduce the right game to the right person at the right moment.
Partner with Marketing, Creative, and other Yahoo surface owners to shape promotional surfaces that convert without feeling like ads.
Work closely with Product, Engineering, and Analytics to define and prioritize discovery opportunities, moving from strategy to shipped experiences.
Use research, data, and experimentation to understand what earns attention and what loses it — then iterate.
Build prototypes and high-fidelity designs in Figma and Claude Code, integrating AI tooling throughout the process to accelerate ideation, automate redundant tasks, and refine user flows from concept to execution.
Use data, user research, and experimentation to iterate and improve designs.
Lead and contribute to design systems and scalable frameworks, leveraging AI-assisted component generation to keep the Yahoo Games experience coherent as it scales.
Participate in playtests and product reviews to stay close to the player perspective that informs your work upstream.
When needed, lean in to support other Yahoo Games initiatives that require Product Design support.
Identify opportunities to integrate AI-driven workflow efficiencies into daily design practices, collaborating with team members on effective AI tool integration.
You Must Have
10+ years of experience designing consumer-facing digital products, with a track record of shaping product strategy and shipped experiences.
Strong portfolio demonstrating strategic and systems-level leadership across end-to-end product experiences and shipped consumer products.
Experience designing marketing, discovery, or acquisition surfaces — with a track record of moving people from awareness to action.
Familiarity with game mechanics, player motivations, and community dynamics — understanding why people choose certain games, what draws them in, and what keeps them coming back.
Ability to design discovery and acquisition experiences that connect with those instincts.
Strong UX fundamentals, including visual design, interaction design, information architecture, and usability.
Experience designing for desktop and mobile web platforms.
Experience designing discovery or growth surfaces (e.g., feeds, entry points, recommendation modules) that move users from awareness to engagement.
Strong product and analytical mindset, with hands-on experience using A/B testing, experimentation frameworks, analytics, and user insights to shape strategy and inform product direction.
Proven ability to lead cross-functional collaboration with product managers, engineers, and leadership stakeholders to drive product direction and business outcomes.
Exceptional communication and storytelling skills, with the ability to influence product strategy, align cross-functional stakeholders, and advocate for user-centered decisions at multiple levels of the organization.
A strong sense of craft, with the ability to infuse personality, delight, and fun into discovery experiences — making the path to a game feel as rewarding as the game itself.
Hands-on proficiency with design and AI-assisted prototyping tools such as Figma, Cursor, and Claude Code to execute prompt-driven UI generation and rapid functional prototyping.
Experience defining, scaling, or evolving design systems and product frameworks across teams or platforms.
Nice to Have
Experience with casual, daily, or puzzle games.
An active relationship with games as a player — curiosity about what makes them compelling, sticky, and worth coming back to.
Why This Role Is Different
You'll own the moment before someone becomes a player — designing the discovery surfaces and entry points that introduce millions of people to games across one of the internet's largest consumer ecosystems.
You'll work at the intersection of games, media, and acquisition — where product strategy meets the question of what makes someone stop scrolling and start playing.
You'll define not just how games are found, but how that discovery feels — bringing personality, delight, and a sense of play to surfaces that most designers treat as purely functional.
Your work will shape how millions of users encounter, choose, and return to games every day — upstream of the experience, but essential to it.
The material job duties and responsibilities of this role include those listed above as well as adhering to Yahoopolicies;exercising sound judgment;working effectively, safely and inclusively with others;exhibiting trustworthinessandmeeting expectations;and safeguarding business operations and brand integrity.
At Yahoo, we offer flexible hybrid work options that our employees love! While most roles don’t require regular office attendance, you may occasionally be asked to attend in-person events or team sessions. You’ll always get notice to make arrangements. Your recruiter will let you know if a specific job requires regular attendance at a Yahoo office or facility. If you have any questions about how this applies to the role, just ask the recruiter!
Yahoo is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to, and will not be discriminated against based on age, race, gender, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran status, disability or any other protected category. Yahoo will consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with applicable law. Yahoo is dedicated to providing an accessible environment for all candidates during the application process and for employees during their employment. If you need accessibility assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability, please submit a request via the Accommodation Request Form (www.yahooinc.com/careers/contact-us.html) or call +1.866.772.3182. Requests and calls received for non-disability related issues, such as following up on an application, will not receive a response.
We believe that a diverse and inclusive workplace strengthens Yahoo and deepens our relationships. When you support everyone to be their best selves, they spark discovery, innovation and creativity. Among other efforts, our 11 employee resource groups (ERGs) enhance a culture of belonging with programs, events and fellowship that help educate, support and create a workplace where all feel welcome.
The compensation for this position ranges from $143,625.00 - $299,375.00/yr and will vary depending on factors such as your location, skills and experience.The compensation package may also include incentive compensation opportunities in the form of discretionary annual bonus or commissions. Our comprehensive benefits include healthcare, a great 401k, backup childcare, education stipends and much (much) more.Currently work for Yahoo? Please apply on our internal career site.