Retail Space Designer – Sam’s Club

Overview

Position Summary... 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.

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.

• 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

• 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), Sketch Up/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:…