Principal Experience Architect

Role overview

A nonprofit education organization is hiring a Principal Experience Architect to lead the design of the underlying structure that ties together a multi-sided learning platform used by students, teachers, parents, and district administrators. The position sits on the Design Leadership Team and focuses on ecosystem-level interaction and information architecture rather than day-to-day screen design, acting as a strategic voice who keeps cross-product coherence as individual teams move quickly. It is a senior, hands-on role that combines systems thinking with direct craft contribution when foundational problems demand it.

Responsibilities

- Own and evolve the end-to-end product interaction model, including navigation systems, permission and role models, and shared vocabulary, ensuring new features extend rather than fragment the architecture. - Map and design journeys that span multiple products and user roles, identifying where handoffs break down, mental models conflict, or consolidation would meaningfully improve the experience. - Build and maintain organizational artifacts such as experience maps, service blueprints, experience architecture diagrams, and reusable design patterns so product teams can make locally good decisions that still add up to a coherent whole. - Serve as a senior advisor on major product decisions, weighing in on long-term coherence and scalability alongside design managers, product managers, and technical architects. - Develop lightweight governance frameworks, guidelines, and review processes that guide embedded designers toward architectural consistency, coaching and influencing rather than mandating. - Prototype, wireframe, or redesign critical cross-cutting flows such as navigation, onboarding, and account or role management when the problem warrants direct involvement, including the use of AI-enabled design tools to work efficiently.

Requirements

- 12 or more years of experience in product design, UX architecture, or UX strategy, with a strong track record in information architecture, multi-platform interaction modeling, and systems-level design. - Demonstrated ability to zoom out from individual features to see how a whole product ecosystem fits together and to translate that view into clear, actionable maps, and mental models. - Excellent visual, interaction, and structural design craft, with the ability to move fluidly between high-level architecture and detailed execution. - Track record of guiding designers, product managers, and engineers toward shared, coherent decisions without formal authority, through clarity, credibility, and collaborative problem-solving. - Experience designing for complex environments with multiple user types, roles, and permission structures, such as enterprise, B2B2C, marketplace, or platform products. - Strong communication and storytelling skills, able to make abstract architectural concepts tangible and compelling for both design peers and non-design executive stakeholders.

Nice to have

- Background in education, learning platforms, or mission-driven products serving historically under-resourced communities. - Familiarity with AI-assisted design tools and workflows, and a willingness to adopt them to improve team throughput.

Benefits and work setup

- The organization explicitly commits to equal employment opportunity and reasonable accommodations for candidates with disabilities throughout the hiring process. - The team emphasizes diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging as core to its mission and culture, encouraging applications from historically underrepresented groups. - Roles and responsibilities may evolve as business and team needs change, reflecting the iterative nature of a growing design organization.