Director, Experience Design Systems

The Company

PayPal has been revolutionizing commerce globally for more than 25 years. Creating innovative experiences that make moving money, selling, and shopping simple, personalized, and secure, PayPal empowers consumers and businesses in approximately 200 markets to join and thrive in the global economy.

We operate a global, two-sided network at scale that connects hundreds of millions of merchants and consumers. We help merchants and consumers connect, transact, and complete payments, whether they are online or in person. PayPal is more than a connection to third-party payment networks. We provide proprietary payment solutions accepted by merchants that enable the completion of payments on our platform on behalf of our customers.

We offer our customers the flexibility to use their accounts to purchase and receive payments for goods and services, as well as the ability to transfer and withdraw funds. We enable consumers to exchange funds more safely with merchants using a variety of funding sources, which may include a bank account, a PayPal or Venmo account balance, PayPal and Venmo branded credit products, a credit card, a debit card, certain cryptocurrencies, or other stored value products such as gift cards, and eligible credit card rewards. Our PayPal, Venmo, and Xoom products also make it safer and simpler for friends and family to transfer funds to each other. We offer merchants an end-to-end payments solution that provides authorization and settlement capabilities, as well as instant access to funds and payouts. We also help merchants connect with their customers, process exchanges and returns, and manage risk. We enable consumers to engage in cross-border shopping and merchants to extend their global reach while reducing the complexity and friction involved in enabling cross-border trade.

Our beliefs are the foundation for how we conduct business every day. We live each day guided by our core values of Inclusion, Innovation, Collaboration, and Wellness. Together, our values ensure that we work together as one global team with our customers at the center of everything we do – and they push us to ensure we take care of ourselves, each other, and our communities.

Job Summary:

This role leads a team of product and UX designers supporting developer experience, design systems, and AI-enabled design tooling across PayPal. Sets clear goals and quality standards, develops designers, and enables the delivery of useful, accessible, and consistent experiences for internal and external developers.

The successful candidate is an experienced people leader and active design practitioner who coaches designers, manages performance, builds a healthy team, and contributes directly when senior design judgment or technical depth can improve outcomes. Hands-on work may include prototypes, critical interaction concepts, design reviews, design-system guidance, and lightweight internal tools.

Partners closely with Product, Engineering, Developer Relations, Documentation, Research, Accessibility, and senior leaders. Influences portfolio strategy and priorities while operating within the direction of the portfolio leader and accountable product and engineering teams.

Job Description:

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

Minimum Qualifications:

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

• 10 or more years of relevant experience in product design, UX design, interaction design, or a related field.

• 5 or more years of experience directly managing product or UX designers.

• Demonstrated experience with hiring, coaching, performance management, career development, team health, retention, and difficult feedback or personnel decisions.

• A portfolio or set of case studies that shows strong storytelling, product and systems thinking, design judgment, leadership results, and meaningful personal contributions to the work.

• Strong current skills in interaction design, prototyping, information architecture, design critique, and user-centered product development.

• Experience leading design work for complex digital products and connecting user needs with business goals and technical constraints.

• Working knowledge of design-system architecture, component models, semantic design tokens, accessibility, front-end implementation constraints, and design-to-code workflows.

• Experience using qualitative and quantitative evidence to identify problems, guide design decisions, and evaluate outcomes.

• Demonstrated ability to work across organizational boundaries and influence product, engineering, design, and senior leadership partners without direct authority.

• Clear written, verbal, and visual communication skills.
• Lead, coach, and develop a team of product and UX designers. Set clear expectations, give timely feedback, support career growth, recognize strong performance, and address performance concerns directly and fairly.

• Recruit and retain strong designers. Build an inclusive team environment that supports collaboration, sound judgment, high design quality, and sustainable performance.

• Translate portfolio goals into clear design priorities for the team. Balance near-term delivery needs with longer-term improvements to shared systems, tools, and practices.

• Assign work based on business priorities, designer strengths, growth goals, and available capacity. Identify staffing or skill gaps and recommend practical changes.

• Maintain current hands-on design knowledge. Contribute directly to selected work where senior judgment, systems thinking, or technical depth can reduce risk or improve quality.

• Lead design reviews and strengthen critique practices. Help designers use research, data, technical constraints, accessibility requirements, and business context to make sound decisions.

• Guide the design of developer dashboards, documentation experiences, and related tools. Ensure that these experiences support clear workflows and reduce effort for internal and external developers.

• Advise teams on the usability of APIs, SDKs, documentation, and MCP-based tools when the work aligns with the candidate's experience. Partner with product and engineering leaders who own the final product and technical decisions.

• Contribute to design-system strategy and standards. Advise on component architecture, semantic design tokens, accessibility, contribution practices, documentation, release practices, adoption, and alignment between design assets and production code.

• Coach designers and partner teams that use or contribute to the design system. Help teams resolve system-level design problems and apply shared patterns consistently.

• Improve approved AI-assisted design workflows and design tooling where these methods can produce clear gains in quality, speed, or consistency. Support small experiments, human review, and practical measures of results.

• Build or guide prototypes and lightweight internal tools when direct implementation is the fastest way to test an idea, reduce technical uncertainty, or improve a workflow.

• Research the needs of developers and other internal users. Use feedback and evidence to identify friction in tools, documentation, handoffs, and implementation workflows.

• Define and track meaningful outcomes for the team's work. Measures can include team health, design quality, task success, developer satisfaction, design-system adoption, accessibility, delivery time, and reduced rework.

• Build effective partnerships across Product, Engineering, Developer Relations, Documentation, Research, Accessibility, Legal, and Security. Communicate clearly with senior leaders, resolve disagreements, and influence decisions through evidence and sound design judgment.
• Experience designing developer-facing products, platforms, dashboards, or internal tools.

• Experience helping to build, govern, scale, or increase adoption of a design system.

• Experience evaluating or improving AI-assisted design or development workflows.

• Ability to use code or low-code tools to build functional prototypes or lightweight internal tools.

• Experience improving the usability of APIs, SDKs, developer documentation, documentation platforms, or MCP-based tools and integrations.

• Experience applying WCAG and inclusive-design practices to complex products and shared systems.

• Experience with global products, regulated environments, or products that require strong security, privacy, and risk controls.

• Experience defining and using measures for developer experience, design-system adoption, design quality, delivery effectiveness, or team health.

Subsidiary:

PayPal

Travel Percent:

0

-

The base pay for this role will depend on where you work and the relevant experience and expertise you bring. The expected range of pay for this role by location is:

Primary Location | Pay Range:

New York City, New York: ($218,000.00 - $323,950.00 Annually)

Additional Location(s) | Pay Range:

No other locations are assigned to this requisition currently.

Additional compensation for this role may include an annual performance bonus, equity, or other incentive compensation, as applicable.

PayPal does not charge candidates any fees for courses, applications, resume reviews, interviews, background checks, or onboarding. When making an application directly, we will never ask you to share passwords, one-time passcodes (OTP), or verification codes. Any such request is a red flag and likely part of a scam. All communication regarding your application will come from official PayPal email domains. If you suspect fraudulent activity, please report it immediately. To learn more about how to identify and avoid recruitment fraud please visit .

For the majority of employees, PayPal's balanced hybrid work model offers 3 days in the office for effective in-person collaboration and 2 days at your choice of either the PayPal office or your home workspace, ensuring that you equally have the benefits and conveniences of both locations.

Our Benefits:

At PayPal, we’re committed to building an equitable and inclusive global economy. And we can’t do this without our most important asset-you. That’s why we offer comprehensive, choice-based programs, to support all aspects of personal wellbeing—physical, emotional, and financial—delivering meaningful value where it matters most. We strive to create a flexible, balanced work culture with a holistic approach to benefits, including generous paid time off, healthcare coverage for you and your family, and resources to create financial security and support your mental health.

Who We Are:

Click Here to learn more about our culture and community.

Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion

PayPal provides equal employment opportunity (EEO) to all persons regardless of age, color, national origin, citizenship status, physical or mental disability, race, religion, creed, gender, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression, genetic information, marital status, status with regard to public assistance, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law. In addition, PayPal will provide reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities. If you are unable to submit an application because of incompatible assistive technology or a disability, please contact us at [email protected].

Belonging at PayPal:

Our employees are central to advancing our mission, and we strive to create an environment where everyone can do their best work with a sense of purpose and belonging. Belonging at PayPal means creating a workplace with a sense of acceptance and security where all employees feel included and valued. We are proud to have a diverse workforce reflective of the merchants, consumers, and communities that we serve, and we continue to take tangible actions to cultivate inclusivity and belonging at PayPal.

Any general requests for consideration of your skills, please Join our Talent Community.

We know the confidence gap and imposter syndrome can get in the way of meeting spectacular candidates. Please don’t hesitate to apply.

Notice to Applicants and Employees who reside within New York City. Click here to view the notice.