Principal Product Designer

JOB DESCRIPTION  

Planet DDS is a leading provider of a platform of cloud-based solutions that empowers growth-minded dental businesses. Now serving over 13,000 practices and 118,000 customers in North America, Planet DDS delivers a comprehensive suite of solutions, including Denticon Practice Management, Cloud 9 Ortho Practice Management, and Apteryx Cloud Imaging. Planet DDS is dedicated to enabling dental support organizations (DSOs) and groups to grow and thrive with technology that delivers seamless integrations, improved workflows, and future-proof scalability.  

As the Principal Product Designer, you will be responsible for driving the end-to-end user experience across our suite of SaaS products. You will join a small, lean team of product managers to install a design-driven development culture while demonstrating the value the discipline of design can bring to the medical technology space. This role will start as a mixture of leadership and individual contribution. If and when the design team grows, you will remain the leader of product design, to recruit and train others to follow the processes and best practices you put into place. Through management or personal effort, your primary responsibility is to ensure that every interaction with our platform is intuitive, elegant, and aligned with customer needs. 

JOB DUTIES  

• Define and champion a compelling design vision and strategy aligned with product and business goals. 

• Collaborate cross-functionally with Product Management, Engineering, Marketing, and Customer Success. 

• Support the development of a inspirational product narrative through vision type development and product presentation design.  

• When the time comes, build, mentor, and grow a high-performing team of product designers and design leads. 

• Establish a design process from design thinking ideation to usability validation. Teach the PM team how to implement design thinking tactics in their product management process. 

• Develop, follow, and oversee the execution of user-centered design processes from discovery to delivery. 

• Ensure high design quality, consistency, and adherence to accessibility and usability standards. 

• Drive adoption and evolution of our design system and product brand guidelines. 

• Lead customer research efforts to uncover deep insights and translate them into actionable design outcomes. 

• Foster a culture of continuous feedback, testing, and iteration. 

• Advocate for the customer voice at every stage of the product lifecycle. 

• Align design strategy with key SaaS metrics such as conversion, retention, NPS, and engagement. 

• Contribute to roadmap planning by identifying opportunities for innovation and differentiation through design. 

• Define standards for the utilization of AI design and prototyping tools 

• Redesign the information architecture of our products 

• Develop a unified design system and find ways to implement it across products 

Skills and Qualifications: 

• 15+ years of experience in product design, including 3+ years in a design leadership role within a SaaS environment. 

• A strong portfolio demonstrating user-centered design thinking, impactful outcomes, and leadership influence. 

• Deep expertise in UX/UI design, design systems, and product development workflows. 

• Experience building and managing design teams in agile, cross-functional environments. 

• Strong understanding of SaaS business models and key performance drivers. 

• Excellent communication, storytelling, and stakeholder management skills. 

Nice to Have: 

• Experience with B2B, enterprise, or multi-tenant SaaS products 

• Background in user research or behavioral psychology 

• Familiarity with front-end development tools and technologies