Staff Retail Space Designer – Sam’s Club

Staff Retail Space Designer – Sam’s Club Location: Bentonville, AR Team: Sam’s Club Experience Strategy and Innovation Job overview: We are looking for an experienced and visionary Retail Experience Designer to shape meaningful, human-centered experiences throughout our clubs. This role blends architecture or interior design craft with experiential storytelling of brand identity, user needs uncovered from design research, and systems thinking connecting the physical experiences to our digital ecosystem. You’ll design environments that are not only beautiful and functional, but deeply grounded in user needs, emotional journeys, and brand intent.

What you’ll do… In this role, you will define how people feel, move, and connect within our in-club environments. Your work will directly shape memorable moments and meaningful interactions, turning ideas into experiences people remember. You’ll work collaboratively across disciplines, partnering with experience strategists, business stakeholders, club operations, UX designers and technologists to imagine and deliver spaces that engage, delight, and endure. This is a staff-level role, ideal for a designer who is hands‑on, conceptually strong, and comfortable owning projects or significant components of larger experiences.

You will be responsible for the design of our physical in-club environments. In this role you will own the end-to-end design process, articulating business, member, and associate requirements, developing experience concepts, drawing/renderings, and physical prototypes from research insights and user requirements, and the continuous refinement of our store formats to support membership acquisition, operational excellence and an exceptional member experience.

Key Responsibilities:

Translate abstract ideas, narratives, and brand principles into tangible spatial concepts and moments

Create clear, compelling, and engaging presentations that communicate experience intent to internal teams and stakeholders using new formats of storytelling

Develop layouts, spatial strategies, flows, and touchpoints that prioritize user experience, emotional impact, and operational efficiencies

Design and refine physical environments, spatial experiences, and in-club touchpoints to align with brand strategy, membership value proposition, and merchandising vision

System thinking with a service‑design mindset to create a differentiated member experience that seamlessly weaves together physical and digital interactions and touchpoints across the shopping journey

Lead the creation of design deliverables including, but not limited to floor plans, elevations, sections, 3D renderings/visualizations, and construction documentation

Partner cross‑functionally with merchandising, operations, real estate, procurement, marketing, and member and associate experience teams

Manage design standards and development of scalable designs (fixtures, finishes, lighting, signage, traffic flow) to drive consistency of experience across stores while enabling local adaptation

Conduct feasibility studies, cost‑to‑design analyses, maintain budget and schedule discipline for new builds and remodels

Monitor post‑installation performance metrics (member traffic, conversion, dwell time, sales per square foot) and iterate store design accordingly

Ensure compliance with all relevant building codes, sustainability/safety/accessibility standards, and brand system requirements

Travel as needed to store sites, vendor workshops, project meetings and construction milestones

Required Skills & Experience:

Bachelor’s or Master’s in Architecture, Interior Design/Interior Architecture or related field

8‑12+ years of experience leading retail store design projects; large‑format or club retail experience preferred

Strong portfolio of store design work (concept through construction) including large‑format/roll‑out programs

Proficient in AutoCAD, Revit (or equivalent BIM), SketchUp/3D modelling, Adobe Creative Suite, rendering tools, AR/VR

Deep knowledge of retail space planning, fixture/merchandising integration, traffic flow, visual merchandising, and customer behavior in physical environments

Proven ability to manage consultants, contractors, budgets, schedules and deliver on multiple simultaneous projects. Strong project management skills

Excellent communication, presentation, and stakeholder management skills

Leadership experience: managing stakeholders and their requirements, facilitating design thinking workshops, guiding functional teams, driving quality

Willingness to travel to store sites (including out of state), vendor meetings, roll‑out locations

Preferred Qualifications:

Experience in large‑scale rollout or prototype development (e.g., multiple store openings)

Knowledge of sustainability and LEED certification programs

Experience in retail domain

Cost/ROI mindset: experience linking design decisions to business metrics

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