Principal Designer - Design Systems

eBay•San Jose, CA

1d•$224,800 - $300,100•Hybrid

About The Position

At eBay, we're more than a global ecommerce leader — we’re changing the way the world shops and sells. Our platform empowers millions of buyers and sellers in more than 190 markets around the world. We’re committed to pushing boundaries and leaving our mark as we reinvent the future of ecommerce for enthusiasts. Our customers are our compass, authenticity thrives, bold ideas are welcome, and everyone can bring their unique selves to work — every day. We're in this together, sustaining the future of our customers, our company, and our planet. Join a team of passionate thinkers, innovators, and dreamers — and help us connect people and build communities to create economic opportunity for all. About the team and the role: eBay’s Design organization creates seamless, end-to-end experiences that connect millions of buyers and sellers globally. The team is customer-focused, collaborative, and driven by curiosity—working across product, engineering, and business to solve complex problems and deliver meaningful impact. As a Principal Designer (director-level), you will define eBay’s long-term experience vision, working closely with executive leadership to shape strategy, drive alignment, and lead multi-year, enterprise-wide initiatives that scale innovation and impact.

Requirements

12+ years experience leading design systems or platform design at scale, with a track record of shaping systems used across multiple products, teams, and platforms
Exceptional product design craft, with deep expertise in interaction design, visual design, systems thinking, and the details required to create coherent, high-quality experiences
The ability to think in systems while designing in the details, connecting individual components and patterns to broader product experiences and organizational needs
Deep understanding of design system architecture and practice, including components, patterns, tokens, accessibility, governance, contribution models, documentation and adoption
Strong understanding of the relationship between design and front-end technology, with the ability to partner deeply with Engineering on scalable implementation
Proven track record to lead, building alignment and raising the quality of work across a large, matrixed organization
Exceptional communication and storytelling skills, with the ability to make complex system decisions clear and build conviction with designers, engineers, product leaders, and executives
A forward-looking perspective on AI, emerging technology, and the future of design systems, paired with a willingness to experiment and turn new ideas into practical solutions

Responsibilities

Define and lead the vision for eBay’s design system, establishing the principles, strategy, and roadmap that shape how experiences are designed and built across eBay, and ensuring system decisions are grounded in measurable business and customer outcomes
Lead the Design Systems practice, bringing together Design, Product, and Engineering to evolve a shared system that enables teams to build high-quality experiences faster and more consistently, while tracking impact through adoption, efficiency, and product quality metrics
Set the bar for craft and quality, remaining hands-on in the design of foundational patterns, components, interaction models, and frameworks that solve complex needs across eBay, and ensuring design decisions improve usability, conversion, and overall experience quality
Evolve the system for the future, finding opportunities to make it more flexible, scalable, accessible, and expressive across products, platforms, and emerging experiences, while aligning evolution to business priorities and performance signals
Define and drive the go-to-market and adoption strategy for the design system, ensuring clear positioning, enablement, and rollout plans for designers and cross-functional partners, and partnering closely with teams to drive awareness, education, onboarding, and sustained usage across the organization
Drive adoption and impact at scale, partnering with teams to understand their needs, remove friction, and ensure the system delivers measurable improvements in quality, consistency, velocity, and key product and business metrics such as development efficiency, design consistency, and user experience outcomes
Shape how AI changes design systems and design practice, experimenting with new tools and approaches that improve how the system is created, maintained, and used by designers and engineers, with a focus on measurable gains in speed, quality and scalability
Influence senior leaders and cross-functional partners, building alignment around system-level investments, standards, and decisions that require coordination across organizational boundaries, and clearly connecting design system strategy to business impact, return on investment, and operational efficiency