Director, Design Systems & Experience Strategy

Into Design Systems; San Jose (CA); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 280,000; Full time

Job summary

eBay is seeking a Principal Designer to define the long-term experience vision for its Design Systems and lead multi-year, enterprise-wide initiatives. You will collaborate with executive leadership and cross-functional partners across product, engineering, and business to drive adoption, quality, and impact at scale.

The role combines hands-on design of foundational patterns with strategic governance, roadmapping, and alignment to business priorities, while exploring AI-enabled approaches to

Qualifications

• 15+ years leading design systems at scale.
• Expertise in interaction design, visual design, and systems thinking.
• Ability to design across components and products.
• Deep knowledge of design system architecture, tokens, accessibility.
• Strong collaboration with engineering on scalable implementations.
• Excellent communication and storytelling to influence executives.
• Forward-looking with AI and emerging tech willingness to experiment.

Responsibilities

• Define and lead the vision for eBay’s design system, establishing principles, strategy, and a roadmap grounded in measurable business and customer outcomes
• Lead the Design Systems practice, bringing together Design, Product, and Engineering to evolve a shared system and track impact through adoption, efficiency, and product quality metrics
• Remain hands-on in designing foundational patterns, components, interaction models, and frameworks to improve usability, conversion, and overall experience quality
• Evolve the system to be more flexible, scalable, accessible, and expressive across products, platforms, and emerging experiences while aligning to business priorities and performance signals
• Define and drive the go-to-market and adoption strategy for the design system, including positioning, enablement, rollout plans, and partnering to drive awareness, education, onboarding, and sustained usage
• Drive adoption and impact at scale by partnering with teams to remove friction and deliver measurable improvements in quality, consistency, velocity, and key product and business metrics
• Shape how AI changes design systems and practice by experimenting with new tools and approaches focused on measurable gains in speed, quality, and scalability
• Influence senior leaders and cross-functional partners to build alignment around system-level investments, standards, and decisions and connect design system strategy to business impact and operational efficiency

Skills

Design systems

Platform design

Systems thinking

Interaction design

Visual design

Cross-functional leadership

Executive leadership

Job description

eBay is seeking a Principal Designer to define the long-term experience vision for its Design Systems and lead multi-year, enterprise-wide initiatives. You will collaborate with executive leadership and cross-functional partners across product, engineering, and business to drive adoption, quality, and impact at scale.

The role combines hands-on design of foundational patterns with strategic governance, roadmapping, and alignment to business priorities, while exploring AI-enabled approaches to