Principal Information Architect - Unified Data Taxonomy
About the team
Product Development Operations powers how Zillow builds products to get more movers home -driving consistent, high-quality customer experiences through scalable systems and seamless integration. We make the Product Development Lifecycle a living, learning system-turning experimentation into momentum and enabling agility, feedback, and continuous growth across the organization.
About the role
As a Principal Information Architect (IA), you're responsible for discovery, definition, and development of enterprise ontologies in support of Zillow's Unified Data Taxonomy, Data & Platform Product, Corporate Strategy and Customer Experience Vision. As a Principal Information Architect, your primary focus will be the creation, stewardship, and governance of Zillow's Unified Data Taxonomy (Customer Journey). You will establish controlled vocabularies, ensure semantic consistency across domains, and guide taxonomy lifecycle management. By aligning operational user journeys with analytical measurement needs, you will help Zillow teams speak a common language, avoid duplication, and build trusted, reusable taxonomies that power product decisions, analytics, and AI innovation. You will be responsible for working collaboratively across Zillow lines of business and functions to develop a unified data taxonomy and domain ontologies in support of enterprise initiatives. The Principal Information Architect should be capable of supporting an emerging and evolving IA program at Zillow. You'll do this by clearly communicating a vision for IA and advocating for the value of using semantic technology and knowledge organization concepts. As a design leader, you develop positive relationships, provide mentorship to other designers, and work with others to elevate experience design quality. Our mission is to make Zillow the most-loved place to discover, buy, sell, or rent a home.
Responsibilities
- Develop and communicate a 6-12 month vision to senior stakeholders and partner teams for a "north star unified customer data taxonomy" to inform long-term planning, including accurate details and transparency on risks and impediments. Proactively build relationships with those outside of your immediate team resulting in horizontal influence.
- Partner closely with the Data Modeling Guild to create enterprise taxonomies to support our customer data model, ensuring there are clear structural hierarchies from domain to interaction to context.
- Oversee taxonomy lifecycle management: versioning, change management, sunset/deprecation of terms, and ensuring backward compatibility.
- Embed taxonomy governance into product development workflows, partnering closely with Product, Data Science, and Engineering to prevent siloed event and data API schema creation.
- Develop standards, guidelines, and direction for ontology, semantics, and data standardization in general at Zillow Group. Experience with IA governance over time.
- Strong facilitation skills, including the ability to effectively communicate the new event taxonomy across multiple lines of business & ensure that each LOB is empowered with a clear understanding & execution plan based on the unified vision
- Define and enable a near-term taxonomy roadmap to deliver on business outcomes, quickly identifying points of leverage in complex problems or systems, and utilizing data effectively to define success metrics and measurable outcomes
- Utilize balanced judgment in decisions about risks of both actions taken and not taken while innovating on ways to iterate faster in a well-managed way for immediate teams you're working with
- Understand and leverage end-state architecture vision in partnership with Engineering, Data Science, Product, and Design teams to support the development and integration of semantics in Zillow products and services, driving comprehensive design decisions
- Collaborate with partner teams to articulate use cases, objectives, and architectural designs that support business goals
- Deliver value by creating reusable, extensible and resilient capabilities
- Contribute to team culture and recruiting by mentoring and developing junior IA associates
- Communicate and advocate the value of Zillow's efforts in ontologies, semantics, OOUX, and standardization across the business
- Maintain awareness of competitor and industry developments related to ontology use, knowledge organization, and OOUX.
This role has been categorized as a Remote position. "Remote" employees do not have a permanent corporate office workplace and, instead, work from a physical location of their choice, which must be identified to the Company. U.S. employees may live in any of the 50 United States, with limited exceptions.
In California, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Washington state, and Washington DC the standard base pay range for this role is $178,300.00 - $284,700.00 annually. This base pay range is specific to these locations and may not be applicable to other locations.In Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, Minnesota, Nevada, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Vermont the standard base pay range for this role is $169,300.00 - $270,500.00 annually. The base pay range is specific to these locations and may not be applicable to other locations.
In addition to a competitive base salary this position is also eligible for equity awards based on factors such as experience, performance and location. Actual amounts will vary depending on experience, performance and location. Employees in this role will not be paid below the salary threshold for exempt employees in the state where they reside.
Who you are
- 8+ years as an information architect, experience architect, ontologist, taxonomy lead or similar role
- Fluent in the principles of information architecture, ontology design, and their practical applications
- Able to create and maintain taxonomies and labeling systems to effectively organize and manage information into accordance with industry standards/best practices
- Experience with product analytics tools (Amplitude, Mixpanel, Google Analytics, Heap, etc.) to guide strategy and best practices for user behavior data
- A curious problem-solver, finding ways to help users navigate complex products and scenarios
- Able to translate IA requirements for structured information into design and engineering requirements
- Able to champion taxonomy as a business enabler by clearly articulating the business impact of standing up and maintaining taxonomies
- Experienced in managing partner interactions in order to influence decision-making and prioritization
- Able to communicate effectively with senior leadership across multiple disciplines to align on a longer-term IA strategy that's good for both the customer and business
- Able to clearly communicate and advocate for IA (including conceptual models, industry standards, and applications) to product and design partners, including UX, UI, design systems and service designers
Get to know us
At Zillow, we're reimagining how people move-through the real estate market and through their careers. As the most-visited real estate platform in the U.S., we help customers navigate buying, selling, financing and renting with greater ease and confidence. Whether you're working in tech, sales, operations, or design, you'll be part of a company that's reshaping an industry and helping more people make home a reality.
Zillow is honored to be recognized among the best workplaces in the country. Zillow was named one of FORTUNE 100 Best Companies to Work For® in 2025, and included on the PEOPLE Companies That Care® 2025 list, reflecting our commitment to creating an innovative, inclusive, and engaging culture where employees are empowered to grow.
No matter where you sit in the organization, your work will help drive innovation, support our customers, and move the industry-and your career-forward, together.
Zillow Group is an equal opportunity employer committed to fostering an inclusive, innovative environment with the best employees. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please contact your recruiter directly.
Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with applicable state and local law.
Los Angeles County applicants: Job duties for this position include: work safely and cooperatively with other employees, supervisors, and staff; adhere to standards of excellence despite stressful conditions; communicate effectively and respectfully with employees, supervisors, and staff to ensure exceptional customer service; and follow all federal, state, and local laws and Company policies. Criminal history may have a direct, adverse, and negative relationship with some of the material job duties of this position. These include the duties and responsibilities listed above, as well as the abilities to adhere to company policies, exercise sound judgment, effectively manage stress and work safely and respectfully with others, exhibit trustworthiness and professionalism, and safeguard business operations and the Company's reputation. Pursuant to the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.