Principal, Distinguished Experience Architect

PayPal • San Jose, CA

31d

About The Position

Experience Architecture is the system-level design discipline that ensures every interaction, flow, and journey aligns to a coherent, intentional, and scalable experience—across surfaces, channels, and customer touchpoints. Where Experience Strategy defines the why and where to play, Experience Architecture defines how it all fits together—across structure, sequencing, navigation, and behavioral flow. This is not just a UX strategy or systems design role—it's both. You will lead the practice of Experience Architecture: the structuring of journeys, flows, navigation, taxonomy, and interaction models into a unified, extensible system. Your work will ensure that every interaction fits together to form a complete, coherent whole—one that reflects our brand, reinforces behavior, and reduces experience entropy as we scale.

Requirements

• 10+ years relevant experience and a Bachelor's degree OR Any equivalent combination of education and experience.
• 12+ years of experience in experience design, UX architecture, or systems design, with a strong portfolio demonstrating strategic impact.
• Proven leadership in structuring complex digital ecosystems and scaling design systems.
• Deep expertise in journey mapping, taxonomy design, interaction modeling, and platform strategy.
• Exceptional communication and storytelling skills, with the ability to influence across disciplines and levels.
• Experience working in large-scale, matrixed organizations with a focus on platform thinking and design maturity.
• Strategic mindset with a bias for action and a passion for enabling great design at scale.

Nice To Haves

• Experience with enterprise platforms, developer tools, or internal design infrastructure.
• Familiarity with accessibility standards, localization, and inclusive design practices.

Responsibilities

• Define and evolve canonical flows, journey structures, and interaction patterns that ensure experience coherence across teams, products, and platforms.
• Architect critical cross-product journeys (e.g., Account, Wallet, Rewards) that unify the customer experience across silos.
• Own and Govern Taxonomy & Information Architecture Partner with Content Design, Product Design, and Engineering to establish scalable IA systems and navigational models.
• Advance Service Design & System Mapping Connect frontstage flows to backstage systems and operational logic; drive service blueprinting across the product lifecycle.
• Drive CX Improvements Identify and resolve systemic customer experience issues across surfaces, workflows, and product areas through architectural interventions—not just interface refinements.
• Partner with Design Systems Collaborate to encode architectural logic into reusable components and interaction frameworks, ensuring real behavior is reflected—not just UI consistency.
• Work with Product Ops and PMO to embed architectural checkpoints into planning, roadmapping, and SDLC processes—accelerating delivery while protecting experience integrity.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Principal
• Number of Employees: 5,001-10,000 employees