PayPal Principal Distinguished Experience Architect 

United States, California, San Jose 

852867855

Essential Responsibilities:

• Establish overall business or technical strategy for user experience initiatives.
• Negotiate with and influence decision-making reaching the senior executive level
• Identify and resolve unique situations of substantial significance in user interface or interaction design
• Allocate resources, responsibly and apply creativity to enhancing user and customer experiences across digital and physical products and services
• Lead the development of user experience strategies that resonate with target audiences.
• Support and mentor less-experienced roles to provide an example of innovation, excellence, and day-to-day learning

Expected Qualifications:

• 10+ years relevant experience and a Bachelor’s degree OR Any equivalent combination of education and experience.

WhereExperience Strategydefines theand

,defines—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.

Key Responsibilities

• Architect the Experience Ecosystem
  

• Lead Horizontal Experience Strategy
  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.

• Transform Experience Delivery
  Work with Product Ops and PMO to embed architectural checkpoints into planning, roadmapping, and SDLCprocesses—acceleratingdelivery while protecting experience integrity.

Qualifications

• 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.

Preferred Skills

• Experience with enterprise platforms, developer tools, or internal design infrastructure.

• Familiarity with accessibility standards, localization, and inclusive design practices.

• Strategic mindset with a bias for action and a passion for enabling great design at scale.

Travel Percent:

The total compensation for this practice may include an annual performance bonus (or other incentive compensation, as applicable), equity, and medical, dental, vision, and other benefits. For more information, visit .

The US national annual pay range for this role is $188,000 to $323,950

Any general requests for consideration of your skills, please