Dir, Principal Conversation Designer

TIAA is looking for Dir, Principal Conversation Designer to join Experience Design team. The Principal Conversation Design role is responsible for leading the effort to shape and craft simple, approachable, and straightforward language, hierarchy, and voice & tone for our digital experiences. In partnership with designers, product owners, and technologists, this position plays a critical lead role in shaping our end-to-end experiences with meaningful contributions to the foundational components of conversation design. This role supports our efforts to guide, inform and educate our clients to make the best choices for their future financial security, supporting our participants to and through their retirement. 

TIAA's design office is redefining the future of retirement, building confidence and improving the lives of millions of Americans. Our mission is to foster a design-led culture and strengthen our craft capabilities, to unlock innovation through cohesive, end-to-end experiences. Through accessible design, we strive to bring dignity to every participant and arm them with secure income to and through retirement. 

The Principal Conversation Designer, you will support our conversational AI design initiatives, developing frameworks and dialogue flows that enhance how we engage with clients and participants. You'll contribute to AI conversation design guidelines and best practices, collaborate with product and development teams on AI assistant capabilities, work cross-functionally to enhance conversational experiences, and play a key role in shaping TIAA's AI-powered conversational interfaces.
 

Key Responsibilities and Duties

• Lead and collaborate with design, product, development, and marketing teams to develop clear and concise conversational content to reach business goals and TIAA’s internal and external audiences. 
• Conduct content audits and content gap analyses to ensure that user experiences are consistent and in line with industry’s best practices and enterprise needs. 
• Lead and collaborate with UX design and content strategy to build consistency and clarity across experiences. 
• Work with research to analyze audience needs, preferences, objectives, and methods. Study and understand how participants and B2B audiences consume content to plan for retirement. 
• Plan, write and present conversational flows, dialogue, intent-level prompts, and global prompts for existing and emerging mobile and web experiences, including user intent mapping, happy paths, edge cases, and fallback strategies. 
• Identify and help solve problems in new and existing user experiences to ensure ease of use in a complex, fast-paced, deadline-driven financial environment. 
• Create consistent, on-brand messaging that clearly articulates the benefits of TIAA products and services, while streamlining operational tasks for internal and external audiences. 
• Establish trusted advisory stakeholder relationships, acting as SME for TIAA related products and services in specific verticals. 
• Conduct SME interviews to identify and define user intents across conversational experiences. 
• Test conversational interactions, monitor live performance, and iterate on intent recognition and response quality. 

Educational Requirements

• University (Degree) Preferred

Work Experience

• 5+ Years Required; 7+ Years Preferred

Career Level
9IC

Required Skills:

• 5+ years of conversation design, content strategy, content design and/or UX writing experience 

• Extensive knowledge of how GenAI- and LLM-powered chatbots that use prompt stacking work, as well as experience with conversation design tools (e.g., Figma, Dialogflow, Voiceflow, Lex, or similar) 

• Demonstrated ability to create conversation flows, dialogue patterns, prompt libraries, and a demonstrable understanding of UX for conversationally driven experiences.  

• Understanding of natural language processing (NLP) concepts and conversation design principles 

• Knowledge of AI assistant capabilities, limitations, and best practices 

• Experience collaborating and leading efforts with cross-functional teams including product, development, engineering, legal, and compliance 

Anticipated Posting End Date:

Actual base salary may vary based upon, but not limited to, relevant experience, time in role, base salary of internal peers, prior performance, business sector, and geographic location.  In addition to base salary, the competitive compensation package may include, depending on the role, participation in an incentive program linked to performance (for example, annual discretionary incentive programs, non-annual sales incentive plans, or other non-annual incentive plans). 

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Company Overview

Every worker deserves a secure retirement. For more than 100 years, TIAA has delivered it for millions of people. Founded to help educators retire with dignity, today weʼre a market-leading retirement company fueled by world-class asset management. But weʼre not just another legacy financial services firm. Weʼre fighting harder than ever before for our clients and the many Americans who need us.

Our Culture of Impact

At TIAA, we're on a mission to build on our 100+ year legacy of delivering for our clients while evolving to meet tomorrow's challenges. We equip our associates with future-focused skills and AI tools that enable us to advance our mission. Together, we are fighting to ensure a more secure financial future for all and for generations to come. We are guided by our values: Champion Our People, Be Client Obsessed, Lead with Integrity, Own It, and Win As One. They influence every decision we make and how we work together to serve our clients every day. We thrive in a collaborative in-office environment where teams work across organizational boundaries with shared purpose, accelerating innovation and delivering meaningful results. Our workplace brings together TIAA and Nuveen's entrepreneurial spirit, where we work hard and work together to create lasting impact. Here, every associate can grow through meaningful learning experiences and development pathways—because when our people succeed, our impact on clients' lives grows stronger.

Benefits and Total Rewards

The organization is committed to making financial well-being possible for its clients, and is equally committed to the well-being of our associates. That’s why we offer a comprehensive Total Rewards package designed to make a positive difference in the lives of our associates and their loved ones. Our benefits include a superior retirement program and highly competitive health, wellness and work life offerings that can help you achieve and maintain your best possible physical, emotional and financial well-being. To learn more about your benefits, please review our Benefits Summary.

Equal Opportunity

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer. TIAA does not discriminate against any candidate or employee on the basis of age, race, color, national origin, sex, religion, veteran status, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, or any other legally protected status.

Our full EEO & Non-Discrimination statement is on our careers home page, and you can read more about your rights and view government notices here.

Accessibility Support

TIAA offers support for those who need assistance with our online application process to provide an equal employment opportunity to all job seekers, including individuals with disabilities. 

If you are a U.S. applicant and desire a reasonable accommodation to complete a job application please use one of the below options to contact our accessibility support team: 

Phone: (800) 842-2755

Email: [email protected]

Drug and Smoking Policy

TIAA maintains a drug-free and smoke/free workplace.

Privacy Notices

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