We are an in-office company, and our expectation is that full-time employees primarily work from their Applied Intuition office 5 days a week. However, we also recognize the importance of flexibility and trust our employees to manage their schedules responsibly. This may include occasional remote work, starting the day with morning meetings from home before heading to the office, or leaving earlier when needed to accommodate family commitments. This in-office expectation does not apply to contractor positions
About the rolePhysical AI is the next wave beyond LLMs, and the stakes are highest in defense: fragmented systems cause missed threats, and clunky interfaces cost operators time they can't get back. Applied is one of a small number of companies with the product surface, field access, and engineering depth to fix this.
The Defense team has proven its autonomy, simulation, and onboard systems in real deployments. Now we're turning bespoke, program-driven wins into products that scale across customers, platforms, and theaters - and design carries a lot of that weight.
We're hiring a Product Designer to own that experience end to end, across two connected surfaces:
- Real-time operator interfaces for command, control, and situational awareness - on tablets, ground stations, and shipboard/airborne environments with constrained compute and connectivity.
- Enterprise web platforms that defense engineering teams, customers, and partners use to build, simulate, test, and ship autonomy.
You don't need to arrive as a defense expert - you need to be a fast, rigorous learner who can turn a complex domain into a clear point of view. You'll conduct primary research with warfighters, analysts, and engineers, and pair with a strong PM and engineering bench to ship. Expect up to 25% travel, including internationally, to bases, ranges, and customer sites.
Reports to the head of product design; partners with PMs across DroneStack, Defense OS, autonomy platforms, and simulation, plus the engineers building each system.
What you'll do- Own the design of one or more Defense products end to end - research, interaction and visual design, prototyping, shipped UI.
- Become the voice of the operator through primary research, ride-alongs, and exercises with warfighters and partners.
- Design real-time edge interfaces that reduce cognitive load and shorten the decide-act loop under contested comms and limited compute.
- Design the trust model for agentic autonomy - approval and escalation patterns that keep humans meaningfully on the loop.
- Design the enterprise tools used to build, simulate, validate, and ship autonomy.
- Extend the Defense design system to serve both real-time and enterprise workflows without splintering.
- Turn one-off program deliveries into repeatable products.
- Represent design at demos, program reviews, and industry events; help grow the design practice as the vertical scales.
What we're looking for- 8+ years of product design experience across at least two meaningfully different environments (industries, product types, stages, or customer segments).
- Track record shipping products end to end - research through launch and iteration - including hard calls on what not to build.
- Strong research instincts: proven ability to learn a new domain from scratch and turn findings into design direction.
- A portfolio showing judgment on information density, decision UI, and multi-user workflows.
- Comfort learning and designing for technically complex systems (no autonomy/robotics background required).
- Strong engineer collaboration and ability to partner with EMs/tech leads on tradeoffs.
- Clear communication - from design briefs to presentations for senior leadership.
- Proficiency with modern prototyping tools.
Security requirements- U.S. citizenship required.
- Must hold or be eligible for a U.S. security clearance (TS/SCI target; Applied will sponsor).
Nice to have- Active DoD Secret/Top Secret/TS-SCI clearance.
- Experience with defense, intelligence, maritime, aerospace, or first-responder users.
- Background in C2, air traffic, cockpit/EFB, geospatial, or real-time simulation interfaces.
- Experience with developer platforms, MLOps, data labeling, or test/observability tools.
- Design experience for edge/constrained-compute environments.
- Experience shaping trust/approval patterns for AI copilots or agentic systems.
- Prior military, intelligence, or fleet operational service.
- Experience helping build a design practice from the ground up.
CompensationIncludes base salary, equity, and benefits (medical/dental/vision/life/disability, 401(k) match, learning/wellness stipends, PTO). Base salary range for this Sunnyvale-based role:
$150,000-$200,000. Actual salary depends on experience, skills, and level.
Don't meet every single requirement? If you're excited about this role but your past experience doesn't align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyway. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles.
