Lead, Experience Development

Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd•Miami, FL

6d•Onsite

About The Position

Journey with us! Combine your career goals and sense of adventure by joining our incredible team of employees at Royal Caribbean Group. We are proud to offer a competitive compensation and benefits package, and excellent career development opportunities, each offering unique ways to explore the world. We are proud to be the vacation-industry leader with global brands — including Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises and Silversea Cruises — the most innovative fleet and private destinations, and the best people. Together, we are dedicated to turning the vacation of a lifetime into a lifetime of vacations for our guests. Royal Caribbean Group’s Celebrity Cruises Team has an exciting career opportunity for a full time Lead, Experience Development reporting to the Director, Product Development This position will be working onsite from Miami. Position Summary: The Lead, Experience Development serves as the Product Owner for guest experiences, shaping the future of Celebrity Cruises by transforming product vision into high-quality, guest-centric journeys. The Lead partners with cross-functional teams to define, prioritize, and deliver innovative concepts across ships and/or destinations — ensuring every sensory touchpoint is seamless, intuitive, and aligned with the brand’s promise. Based in Miami, FL, reporting to the Manager or Senior Manager of Experience Development, the Lead will oversee the day-to-day development, execution, and delivery of new concepts, experiences, activities, programs, and excursions for Celebrity Cruises. They are responsible for translating the product vision into a seamless, thoughtful, and intuitive guest journey, while driving cross-functional workstreams to execute every sensory touchpoint flawlessly — considering everything a guest needs, sees, tastes, hears, smells, and touches. The Lead must champion the guest experience in all they do, ensuring that products are operationally, technically, and financially feasible. They will lead effective workshops, craft detailed presentations, and develop compelling cases to influence critical decisions, align stakeholders, and foster collaboration with partners. The ideal candidate combines creative thinking with critical analysis and problem-solving skills, demonstrating strong leadership and relationship management abilities. They are comfortable navigating complex topics, even those in which they may have limited prior experience and thrive in an iterative environment where flexibility and resilience are essential to success.

Requirements

Minimum 2 to 3 years in a product, design or other similar role developing physical products or customer experiences required
Bachelor’s degree required, Master’s degree a plus
Proven track record of success in fast-paced environment with demanding timelines
Experience developing products grounded in strategies driven by consumer insights
Ability to effectively communicate across a large ecosystem of partners and builders, that spans product definition, design and construction
Exceptional verbal and written communication and project/program leadership skills, including the ability to communicate effectively to the executive levels of the company
Ability to assemble, lead and influence cross-functional teams to execute against a vision
Ability to craft and tell a compelling and influential story for partners and collaborators
Ability to document and package detailed operational requirements and experiences
Obsessive attention to detail and follow-through – every detail matters
Ability to find answers and propose initiative and solutions on your own – a self-starter Proven ability to collaborate with and achieve actionable results through others, plus the ability to build strong and sustainable relationships
Ability to creative problem solve and drive ideas into action, with a positive outlook and willingness to take personal initiative
Obsessive attention to detail and follow-through
Methodical in research, order, prioritization, and implementation
Ability to travel up to 20% of the time

Nice To Haves

Experience working with Architects/Designers/Creative & Innovation Consultants a plus
Experience in the travel industry a plus

Responsibilities

Core Responsibility: Take approved concept strategies and business cases and own them through launch — breaking them into detailed, actionable plans and driving cross-functional execution to achieve the north star vision as fully as possible.
Product Definition: Leads all aspects from experience ideation, development, documentation, and execution with cross-functional partners including, but not limited to, Design, Operations, F&B, Entertainment, Onboard Revenue, Revenue Management, Marketing, Finance, Procurement, Legal, etc.
Product Definition: Create guest experience briefs and playbooks (in the form of detailed presentations) outlining the detailed guest journey and direction on each component needed to bring the vision to life. Creative thinking, strong storytelling, attention to detail and a data-driven approach are essential the successful delivery of this work.
Product Definition: Serves as the primary source of the product vision and requirements for leadership, partners and stakeholders, ensuring they have a deep understanding of the indented guest experience.
Product Definition: Partner with our cross-function teams to define the requirements needed to deliver the ambition and ensure every need to support the experience is being accounted for throughout the development execution.
Product Definition: Work with our partners to assess the operational, technical and financial feasibility of the product, identify solutions to address any feasibility challenges, and drive the forums and material creation to gain alignment on the way forward – balancing experience, operations and business needs.
Product Definition: Identify opportunities throughout the development process to further the products being created.
Product Definition: Lead the documentation, review and approvals of briefs and any support material throughout the development process.
Product Delivery: Understands and delivers to the project management framework such as communicating changes and updates or priority shifts to cross-functional teams while keeping their direct management up to speed on progress with regular pro-active check points.
Product Delivery: Work closely with operations and design teams on run-of-show events to showcase programming and ensure the guest experience will be delivered in line with the product vision.
Product Delivery: Collaborate with Marketing, Public Relations, and Revenue Management to ensure the latest information is accurately depicted in the brand’s communication and systems.
Product Delivery: Establish startup plans and training materials to ensure each concept/experience is flawlessly executed.
Product Delivery: Tracks and monitors startup plans by developing training materials, SOPs or playbooks to ensure each concept/experience is flawlessly executed onboard our ships.
Product Standards: Ensure onboard and onshore product delivery is consistent with the vision and playbooks of new products.
Product Standards: Own and manage the product and experience audit and post-delivery success monitoring of new products and experiences.
Product Standards: Lead the efforts to ensure the product standards, practices, and experience design guidelines of the product are consistent across the brand.
Product Standards: Defines success criteria for products and experiences and coordinates post-delivery audit of the product through metrics and KPI. Willing to travel up to 20% of time onboard ships or shipyard.
Operational Excellence: Support the process and governance for guest facing product changes in line with the Operational Excellence standard assigned to Product Development.
Personnel Management: Responsible for all aspects of personnel management (e.g., hiring, training, and development) of direct reports, if any.
Personnel Management: Enhance and evolve the Product Development team direct reports, if any, by coaching and developing the required skills, roles, and responsibilities needed to concept and execute experiences for the brand.