Job Description
XPRIZE Overview
XPRIZE is an established global leader in designing and executing large-scale competitions to solve humanity’s greatest challenges. As a 501©3, our unique model democratizes innovation by incentivizing crowd-sourced, scientifically viable solutions to create a more equitable and abundant future for all. Since our founding in 1994, we’ve launched $519 million in prize competitions that are driving more than $31 billion in social and economic impact — a 60x return on philanthropic investment. These competitions not only de-risk early-stage breakthrough ideas but also mobilize capital, talent, and momentum to accelerate solutions from concept to real-world scale.
We operate across 5 areas of impact,including:
- Deep Tech + Exploration
- Energy + Climate + Nature
- Food + Water + Waste
- Health
- Learning + Society
Join XPRIZE to help create meaningful impact as we strive to empower humanity to achieve breakthroughs and architect a more equitable and abundant future for all.
Position Description
XPRIZE is seeking a First-Principles Prize Designer to lead the development of bold, high-impact global incentive competitions that accelerate innovation for the benefit of humanity. The role functions as a product manager for Prize Design projects, combining research, quantitative reasoning, design thinking, and communication to produce competition designs that target the breakthroughs behind an equitable and abundant future.
What sets this role apart is how the work starts. Faced with a new problem, you start by building your own understanding from the ground up before turning to the literature. You develop a working sense of the problem’s scale and structure early, apply order-of-magnitude estimates and “whiteboard” the first-order math — enough to judge which incentives and metrics will meaningfully move the needle — then test those ideas against the world’s leading experts. Every prize shares some common themes, and you’re energized by the thought of being flexible and adaptable enough to apply that mental model across five diverse areas of impact at XPRIZE. You work closely with XPRIZE domain leaders and technology staff to explain your framing of the problem, refine the implications of your findings, and in doing so, create the next great XPRIZE.
From a technical perspective, the ideal candidate thinks like a scientist and communicates like a generalist. You are able to build a credible working model of an unfamiliar problem quickly, and know when to go deeper. This allows you to move (for example) from designing a prize around the next breakthrough in fusion energy, to the effects of AI on society, to biotech for spaceflight, all in the same year.
The First-Principles Prize Designer leads end-to-end design, from initial ideation through the XPRIZE Global Visioneering process, to delivery of the final design report. You steward every phase: defining the problem, choosing the most effective prize direction, setting competition criteria, establishing phases and milestones, and building budgets across the full lifecycle of a prize. You ensure that each concept is well-researched, feasible, fundable, and positioned to win funding from a future sponsor. You report to the Prize Design Director and work within structured, accelerated timelines alongside a Project Manager, Domain Leads, Advancement, and cross-functional partners in finance, marketing, and operations. The role also involves regular engagement with sponsors and subject matter experts to keep technical rigor and strategic impact aligned.
Prize Designers also steward XPRIZE’s design methodology, refining internal processes, capturing lessons learned, and representing the approach through thought leadership, workshops, and publications. Beyond individual projects, they contribute to organization-wide efforts such as Global Visioneering and other ideation that surfaces future XPRIZE opportunities.
Responsibilities
- Lead the end-to-end design and development of XPRIZE competitions, from framing the problem and defining success metrics to conducting research, engaging stakeholders, shaping the prize model, and producing final design documentation. Work within a structured design process guided by the Prize Design Director and seek Director input at key decision points to stay aligned with organizational priorities and quality standards.
- Operate with a high degree of self-direction between check-ins with the Prize Design Director. Proactively surface blockers, risks, and decisions that need Director input rather than waiting for scheduled touchpoints.
- Adapt quickly when the Prize Design Director reprioritizes projects or shifts design direction mid-cycle, maintaining momentum and timelines.
- Develop project plans, budgets, and timelines, coordinating with the Project Manager so deliverables meet deadlines and quality standards.
- Work closely with internal teams and collaborators, keeping alignment with Domain Leads, leadership, and Advancement on strategy, content, and positioning. Fold operational, financial, and communications inputs from Finance, Marketing, and Operations into the prize model and documentation.
- Identify and engage external experts and stakeholders, including designing and facilitating workshops, technical interviews, and other participatory research to inform design choices.
- Facilitate productive sponsor relationships as requested, with clear communication, updates, and deliverables that align with sponsor goals and XPRIZE standards.
- Contribute to organization-wide ideation and concept development such as Global Visioneering and prize ideation/ “Moonshot” workshops.
- Maintain and improve XPRIZE’s prize design methodology by staying fluent in current processes and documentation, capturing lessons learned from past and active designs, and updating tools and practices. Serve as an internal resource on the prize design process and keep core documentation current.
- Elevate XPRIZE’s prize design process externally through presentations, publications, website content, and thought leadership.
Qualifications
- First-principles reasoning: builds a working understanding of an unfamiliar problem from first principles — developing a credible sense of scale, feasibility, and impact potential early enough to make good design decisions before investing significant time.
- Cross-disciplinary range: moves comfortably across unrelated fields (e.g. Energy/Nature/Climate to Learning/Society) and knows how to reach design-credible competence in a new domain fast.
- Education: Masters’ degree in a STEM field required. Recent PhD/post-doc encouraged. Candidates with equivalent analytical experience in rigorous, research-driven fields will be considered. Exceptional analytical and research experience in related disciplines may substitute for the education requirement.
- Demonstrates basic ability to use dimensional analysis or order-of-magnitude estimates to constrain a new problem. The prepared candidate will benefit from a working level familiarity with the themes of “Order of Magnitude Physics: Understanding the World with Dimensional Analysis, Educated Guesswork and White Lies (Goldreich et al., available online for free).
- Applies research, analytical, and creative problem-solving in fields such as engineering, physical or life sciences, data science, economics, or other rigor-driven domains.
- Strong design and design-thinking skills: problem definition, decomposition into sub-problems, identifying the right problem to solve, and combining creative and analytical methods to find design elements.
- Command of core product management: budgeting, contractual compliance, client relations, and project design, execution, evaluation, and delivery.
- Produces high-quality research, analysis, and design deliverables under compressed timelines without losing rigor or accuracy.
- Runs several active projects at once and reprioritizes quickly when organizational needs shift, keeping a direct supervisor informed when timelines are at risk or scope is evolving.
- Comfortable taking direction from a senior design leader and executing independently within it. Knows what to decide alone and what to escalate.
- Communicates clearly and credibly with experts and external stakeholders, orally and in writing, and matches style and standards to the audience.
- Exceptionally strong technical presentation skills: able to adapt depth and framing for expert and non-expert audiences equally.
- Familiar with research and data platforms (e.g. Google Scholar, PubMed, Scopus) and AI assisted research functions (e.g. Gemini Deep Research). Proficient with Microsoft Office and Google Workspace, and quick to pick up new productivity, research, and collaboration tools.
Competencies required for this role:
- First-Principles Reasoning
- Order-of-Magnitude Estimation
- Analytical Problem-Solving
- Feasibility Judgment
- Cross-Disciplinary Range
- Manages Ambiguity and Complexity
- Nimble Learning, even in a new field
- Situational Adaptability
- Global Perspective
- Communicates Effectively and Professionally
- Collaborates Internally and Externally
- Drives Vision and Purpose
Why Work at XPRIZE:
In addition to working for a mission-driven company that catalyzes industries, pushes innovation forward, and is creating an abundant and equitable future, we offer the following benefits:
- Remote-first environment (must live and work in the United States)
- Quarterly company-paid All-Hands meetings in Los Angeles for frequent in-person collaboration
- Employee and dependent medical, dental, and vision options
- A 401(K) program with employer match
- Ample paid time off, including vacation, floating holidays, sick days, and company-paid holidays
- An Employee Assistance Program for confidential, professional support with personal, family, or other challenges
- Employee stipends/reimbursements for cell phone, intern
