Principal, UX Research Systems

At eBay, we're more than a global ecommerce leader — we’re changing the way the world shops and sells. Our platform empowers millions of buyers and sellers in more than 190 markets around the world. We’re committed to pushing boundaries and leaving our mark as we reinvent the future of ecommerce for enthusiasts.

Our customers are our compass, authenticity thrives, bold ideas are welcome, and everyone can bring their unique selves to work — every day. We're in this together, sustaining the future of our customers, our company, and our planet.

Join a team of passionate thinkers, innovators, and dreamers — and help us connect people and build communities to create economic opportunity for all.

About the team and the role: 

eBay’s Design organization creates seamless, end-to-end experiences that connect millions of buyers and sellers globally. The team is customer-focused, collaborative, and driven by curiosity—working across product, engineering, and business to solve complex problems and deliver meaningful impact.

As Principal, UX Research Systems (Director level), you will define and lead eBay’s long-term vision for UX Research Systems and Operations. You will transform how customer research is planned, driven, managed, and scaled across the company by modernizing the platforms, processes, and capabilities that enable customer insights at enterprise scale.

This is a highly strategic leadership role focused on building the future of research operations. You will lead the evolution of eBay’s participant recruitment, customer panel management, incentive and compliance programs, research tooling ecosystem, and operational infrastructure. Working closely with executive leadership across Design, Product, Engineering, Legal, Privacy, Procurement, and Global Consumer Insights, you will drive enterprise-wide initiatives that increase the speed, quality, accessibility, and impact of customer research.

You will be responsible for leading a team to create modern, AI-enabled Customer Research capabilities that reduce operational friction, automate manual workflows, proactively manage customer panel health, and enable teams across eBay to connect with customers more efficiently and effectively than ever before.

What you will accomplish:

• Define and implement the long-term vision for eBay’s user experience research infrastructure. Transform research operations into a scalable, technology-enabled platform. This platform empowers teams across eBay to connect with customers faster, more effectively, and at greater scale.

• Lead the modernization of eBay’s research infrastructure and operating model, creating seamless, end-to-end experiences that simplify participant recruitment, study management, incentives, compliance, insight capture, and knowledge management while enabling self-service research capabilities across the organization.

• Drive eBay’s AI-enabled research transformation, identifying and implementing opportunities to automate research workflows, streamline operations, improve data quality, accelerate insight generation, and create a more intelligent and connected research ecosystem.

• Build and scale enterprise-wide participant and panel management capabilities, partnering with Global Consumer Insights and cross-functional collaborators to strengthen customer panel health, participant engagement, incentive programs, governance, privacy, and compliance through data-driven and automated approaches.

• Establish world-class operational excellence for customer research, developing scalable platforms, systems, and frameworks that improve efficiency, consistency, quality, participant experience, and business impact while continuously optimizing performance through measurable outcomes.

• Influence and align senior leaders around a future-state vision for customer research, securing investment and driving organizational change toward a highly automated, user-centered ecosystem where research can be initiated, driven, synthesized, and operationalized with unprecedented speed and scale.

What you will bring: 

• 15+ years leading UX Research Operations, Research Systems, Customer Insights infrastructure, or related enterprise platform transformations, with a track record of delivering measurable gains in speed, scale, quality, and business impact.

• Deep expertise in scaling research operations capabilities, including participant recruitment, panel management, incentives, governance, compliance, vendor management, and research technology platforms.

• Demonstrated success building self-service research platforms or democratized research programs that enable product teams to engage customers at scale while maintaining strong quality controls and governance.

• Strong systems-thinking and strategic execution skills, with the ability to define multi-year transformation roadmaps and deliver pragmatic progress in complex, ambiguous environments.

• Experience identifying and applying automation and AI opportunities to streamline workflows, improve operational efficiency, and strengthen data quality, participant experience, and insight generation.

• Exceptional executive influence and cross-functional leadership, with the ability to align senior partners across Design, Product, Engineering, Legal, Privacy, Procurement, and Insights around enterprise-wide change.

• Strong analytical rigor and change leadership, with the ability to navigate complexity, drive adoption, and continuously improve operational performance in a global, matrixed environment.

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Additional Details

This job posting relates to an existing vacancy within eBay.

eBay is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, and disability, or other legally protected status. If you have a need that requires accommodation, please contact us at [email protected]. We will make every effort to respond to your request for accommodation as soon as possible. View our accessibility statement to learn more about eBay's commitment to ensuring digital accessibility.

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