Principal Service Designer

Principal Service Designer - Fintech & Payment Processing

Location: Atlanta, GA | Onsite Level: Principal | Individual Contributor

About the Role

We're seeking an experienced Principal Service Designer to lead complex, end-to-end service design initiatives across fintech, payment processing, and transactional customer experiences.

This role goes beyond designing individual digital products or checkout interfaces. You'll take a holistic view of how payments move through a complex retail ecosystem, examining the relationships between customer interactions, payment technologies, operational processes, financial partners, and the systems that support them.

The ideal candidate combines deep expertise in service design, journey management, systems thinking, and experience strategy with substantial experience in fintech, payment processing, and complex transactional ecosystems.

You'll identify friction across the entire payment journey, from payment selection and authorization through transaction completion, settlement, refunds, disputes, and issue resolution. You'll connect customer-facing experiences with the underlying processes, systems, and operational dependencies that influence them.

As a Principal-level individual contributor, you'll influence experience strategy across multiple teams, align senior stakeholders, and translate complex payment challenges into actionable service improvements.

We're looking for someone who can operate strategically across the enterprise while remaining hands-on in the service design work.

What You'll Do

Enterprise Service Design & Experience Strategy

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Lead enterprise-scale service design initiatives focused on payment processing, fintech platforms, and end-to-end transactional experiences.

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Develop comprehensive service blueprints, customer journey maps, ecosystem maps, and future-state service models illustrating how payment experiences connect across products, systems, channels, and operational functions.

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Identify systemic friction, fragmented workflows, and opportunities to improve the payment experience.

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Examine how customer-facing payment interactions connect to backend processes, technical infrastructure, financial partners, and internal operations.

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Define future-state payment journeys that improve consistency, transparency, efficiency, and customer confidence.

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Translate research findings, operational insights, and service design artifacts into strategic recommendations that influence enterprise priorities.

Fintech & Payment Processing

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Evaluate and improve end-to-end payment journeys spanning payment initiation, authentication, authorization, processing, settlement, refunds, disputes, and exception handling.

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Understand the relationships between payment gateways, processors, merchant systems, financial institutions, and customer-facing applications.

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Identify opportunities to reduce friction across online, mobile, and in-store payment experiences.

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Explore how payment failures, declined transactions, refunds, reversals, and dispute processes impact the overall customer and associate experience.

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Partner with Product, Engineering, and Payments stakeholders to understand how payment infrastructure, integrations, and business rules shape service delivery.

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Help simplify complex payment interactions while considering security, trust, regulatory requirements, and operational feasibility.

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Connect customer-facing payment experiences with internal servicing, support, and reconciliation processes.

Systems Thinking, Research & Service Innovation

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Apply advanced systems thinking to understand the dependencies between payment technologies, business processes, operational teams, and customer interactions.

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Synthesize qualitative and quantitative research, transaction insights, customer feedback, and operational data.

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Identify root causes of friction across payment journeys rather than addressing isolated interface issues.

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Develop future-state service concepts and experience frameworks that address systemic payment challenges.

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Facilitate discovery workshops, journey-mapping sessions, and cross-functional working groups.

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Identify opportunities for service innovation, operational improvements, and more connected payment experiences.

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Establish approaches for measuring improvements in customer experience, transaction success, operational efficiency, and service quality.

Principal-Level Influence & Leadership

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Serve as a strategic thought partner to senior leaders across Product, UX Design, UX Research, Engineering, Payments, Operations, and business functions.

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Influence payment experience strategy and priorities across multiple products and organizational teams.

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Facilitate executive-level conversations to align stakeholders around complex payment journeys and systemic opportunities.

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Communicate service ecosystems, technical dependencies, and strategic recommendations through compelling storytelling and visual frameworks.

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Drive alignment between customer needs, business objectives, payment infrastructure, and operational capabilities.

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Champion service design methodologies and elevate how teams approach complex transactional experiences.

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Provide thought leadership and mentorship while remaining a hands-on individual contributor.

What We're Looking For

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Extensive experience in Service Design, Experience Strategy, Customer Experience, Journey Management, or Product Design, with demonstrated Principal-level ownership and organizational influence.

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Direct experience within fintech, payment processing, payment platforms, or complex payments ecosystems.

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Deep hands-on expertise developing service blueprints, customer journey maps, ecosystem maps, and future-state service models.

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Demonstrated understanding of end-to-end payment journeys, including transaction processing, payment failures, refunds, disputes, and servicing.

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Experience working across payment technologies, financial partners, operational workflows, and customer-facing experiences.

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Strong systems thinking and the ability to connect frontend interactions with backend infrastructure and operational processes.

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Proven experience leading complex service design initiatives across multiple products, teams, and business functions.

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Ability to translate customer research, operational insights, and technical complexity into actionable experience strategies.

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Demonstrated success influencing senior stakeholders and driving strategic alignment without direct authority.

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Strong executive communication, facilitation, storytelling, and stakeholder-management skills.

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Comfortable navigating ambiguity, complex technical ecosystems, and highly matrixed organizations.

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Ability to balance strategic vision with hands-on service design execution and measurable business outcomes.

Nice to Have

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Experience within large-scale retail, e-commerce, fintech, banking, or payment technology organizations.

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Experience with omnichannel payments spanning digital checkout, mobile applications, point-of-sale systems, and physical retail environments.

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Familiarity with payment gateways, processors, merchant acquiring, card networks, digital wallets, and alternative payment methods.

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Understanding of payment orchestration, transaction routing, settlement, reconciliation, and payment exception management.

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Experience working in environments involving PCI DSS, fraud prevention, payment security, or other regulatory considerations.

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Experience designing services involving third-party payment providers and complex financial technology integrations.

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Experience establishing or scaling enterprise service design practices.

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Background in operational transformation or payment experience modernization.

Portfolio Expectations

We're looking for candidates who can demonstrate Principal-level service design leadership within fintech, payment processing, or complex transactional ecosystems.

Portfolios should highlight:

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End-to-end payment journeys: Experience mapping and improving payment interactions across multiple channels, systems, and operational touchpoints.

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Service blueprinting: Examples connecting customer-facing payment experiences with backstage operations, technical infrastructure, and supporting business processes.

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Systems thinking: Demonstrated ability to understand complex payment ecosystems, identify dependencies, and uncover root causes of friction.

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Strategic influence: Examples of using service design insights to influence payment experience strategy, cross-functional decisions, or enterprise initiatives.

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Complex problem-solving: Experience addressing fragmented payment workflows, transaction failures, servicing challenges, or operational inefficiencies.

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Measurable impact: Outcomes tied to transaction success, reduced payment friction, operational improvements, customer satisfaction, or business performance.

We're particularly interested in understanding the complexity of the payment ecosystem, the candidate's individual ownership, the service design methodologies applied, the stakeholders influenced, and the measurable outcomes achieved.

The strongest candidates will demonstrate how they connected customer needs with technical and operational realities to drive meaningful improvements across an entire payment service - not simply redesign a checkout interface.

The hourly pay range for this position (dependent on factors including but not limited to client requirements, experience, statutory considerations, and location) is $75.00 to $80.00/hr. Benefits available to full-time employees: medical, dental, vision, disability, life insurance, 401k and commuter benefits.

Synergis is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We value diversity and do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, ethnicity, national origin, religion, age, gender, gender identity, political affiliation, sexual orientation, marital status, disability, military/veteran status, or any other status protected by applicable law.

Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with the requirements of applicable state and local laws, including but not limited to, the City of Los Angeles’ Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance, the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers and the California Fair Chance Act.

For immediate consideration, please forward your resume to mpersons@synergishr.com

If you require assistance or an accommodation in the application or employment process, please contact us at mpersons@synergishr.com.

Synergis is a workforce solutions partner serving thousands of businesses and job seekers nationwide. Our digital world has accelerated the need for businesses to build IT ecosystems that enable growth and innovation along with enhancing the Total Experience (TX). Synergis partners with our clients at the intersection of talent and transformation to scale their balanced teams of tech, digital and creative professionals. Learn more about Synergis at www.synergishr.com.