Principal Product Designer, Hotels.com

Expedia Group • Chicago, IL

3d

About The Position

Expedia Group brands power global travel for everyone, everywhere. We design cutting-edge tech to make travel smoother and more memorable, and we create groundbreaking solutions for our partners. Our diverse, vibrant, and welcoming community is essential in driving our success. Why Join Us? To shape the future of travel, people must come first. Guided by our Values and Leadership Agreements, we foster an open culture where everyone belongs, differences are celebrated and know that when one of us wins, we all win. We provide a full benefits package, including exciting travel perks, generous time-off, parental leave, a flexible work model (with some pretty cool offices), and career development resources, all to fuel our employees' passion for travel and ensure a rewarding career journey. We’re building a more open world. Join us. The Product Team creates high-quality end-to-end experiences for travellers, partners, and Expedia Group. Our customer-first mindset focuses on developing products that encourage loyalty and repeat business from our travellers and partners. We partner closely with teams across Expedia Group to achieve growth and results for our customers and company. Are you a multi-disciplinary designer who thrives at the intersection of strategy, craft, and technology? Do you want to shape end-to-end experiences that help millions of people explore and enjoy the world? Are you passionate about solving complex problems, prototyping bold ideas, and bringing elegant, scalable solutions to life? At Expedia Group, our mission is to power global travel for everyone, everywhere. Within Expedia Group, the Experience Design (XD) organisation is a global, cross-disciplinary team uniting user experience design, content design, and research to create innovative, relevant, and cohesive experiences for travellers, partners, and agents. We’re looking for a Principal Product Designer who can flex across visual, strategic, and interaction design and who thrives in owning end-to-end experiences. You’ll be part of a world-class team working across brands, platforms, and devices in a collaborative, fast-paced environment. As a Principal Product Designer at Hotels.com, you’ll play a pivotal role in shaping world-class user experiences for one of our flagship brands. Embedded within our product and technology organisation, you’ll lead collaboration with cross-functional teams - including brand, marketing, and design systems - to evolve and elevate the Hotels.com product experience. You will set the bar for exemplary visual, strategic, and interaction design—while mentoring and inspiring others to elevate their craft and storytelling capabilities. You’ll bring broad range of skills to the table: from strategic thinking and systems design to high-fidelity visual design and prototyping. With a strong emphasis on design craft and a sharp eye for detail, you’ll help elevate the brand across the entire user journey. By championing simplicity, innovation, and consistency, you’ll shape how the brand comes to life across digital touchpoints - making it easier, more intuitive, and more enjoyable for users to book their next trip.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in UX Design, Graphic Design, Visual Design or equivalent experience.
• 10+ years of experience in UX or product design, ideally in a product-driven environment.
• Strong portfolio demonstrating a wide range of design skills - from strategy and systems thinking to visual design polish and advanced prototyping.
• Proficient in tools like Figma & Adobe Creative Suite.
• Strong prototyping skills using tools like Figma or code-based approaches.
• Experienced in responsive web and mobile app design.
• Comfortable working with and contributing to design systems.
• Familiar with user research methodologies and usability testing.
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills.

Nice To Haves

• Experience in travel or e-commerce is a plus.
• Knowledge of accessibility standards and inclusive design practices.
• Familiarity with front-end development technologies (HTML, CSS, JavaScript).
• Experience with data-driven design and A/B testing.
• Experience using AI to optimize workflow and process.

Responsibilities

• Problem Definition and Product Strategy You will develop, drive and teach best practice for problem framing work and synthesis of customer and business insights.
• Lead the definition of customer experience vision and strategy across complex problem spaces.
• Use a range of methods to gather and synthesize insights, driving clarity in ambiguous contexts.
• Translate business goals and user needs into actionable design strategies.
• Design Craft and Execution You will define, drive and teach exemplary visual, strategic and interaction design practice.
• Own end-to-end experiences, from discovery and ideation to delivery and iteration.
• Champion elegant, scalable design solutions with a high-quality bar for execution.
• Create and iterate on prototypes to explore ideas, validate concepts, and communicate intent.
• Systems Thinking: Collaborate across disciplines to align goals and drive organisational efficiency.
• You will contribute to major evolutions in the design system and platform-level capabilities, with a focus on flexibility, reusability, and brand consistency.
• Apply advanced concepts in modularity, progressive enhancement, and conditional logic.
• Communication and Collaboration: Develop persuasive storytelling and communication materials to build trust and alignment, connecting vision, strategy and goals at an organizational level.
• Model effective feedback practices and mentor others in clear, concise communication.
• Partner with product, engineering, and research to co-create solutions.
• Customer Centricity: Apply and adapt design and research processes to large, complex problem areas.
• Use qualitative and quantitative insights to inform and validate design decisions.
• Consistently advocate for user needs and deliver solutions that solve real problems.

Benefits

• Expedia Group is proud to offer a wide range of benefits to support employees and their families, including medical/dental/vision, paid time off, and an Employee Assistance Program.
• To fuel each employee’s passion for travel, we offer a wellness & travel reimbursement, travel discounts, and an International Airlines Travel Agent (IATAN) membership.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Principal