MarcusThompson
Product Design Leader
[email protected]
+1 (415) 555–0142
San Francisco, CA
November 14, 2024
Ref · STR–HOD–2024
Katie Dill
Head of Design Recruiting · Stripe, Inc.
510 Townsend Street, San Francisco

On building the unseen infrastructure of trust.

Dear Katie,

The best financial interfaces disappear. They don't ask to be admired — they earn their place by making a merchant in Lagos feel the same certainty as an enterprise CFO in London. That quiet confidence is what drew me to Stripe's work for nearly a decade, and it's why I'm writing about the Head of Design role.

For the past four years at Google, I led the redesign of Maps across 180 markets — a project that taught me how design decisions at platform scale ripple into lives. We shipped a new navigation system to two billion users, cut task-completion time by 34%, and — the metric I care about most — raised trust scores in emerging markets where Maps is now used as civic infrastructure.

Before Google, I spent five years at Airbnb, where I built the checkout experience from the studs up. The framework we introduced still underpins their booking flow today.

Selected Impact
01
Led Google Maps' global redesign across 180 markets. Managed 40+ designers across five offices; shipped to 2B users.
02
Lifted Airbnb checkout conversion by 22% year–over–year. Rebuilt the payment flow, reducing drop–off on mobile by 41%.
03
Built and mentored high–performing design organizations. Hired 60+ designers; 12 have since become design leaders themselves.

What excites me about Stripe isn't the API, elegant as it is — it's the opportunity to shape how money moves in the next decade. Financial UX sits at the intersection of clarity, consequence, and empathy: a misplaced decimal isn't a bug, it's a violation of trust. I want to lead a team that treats that weight as the craft itself.

I'd welcome a conversation about where design can take Stripe next — particularly around embedded finance, platform experiences, and the tools your merchants reach for on their hardest days. Thank you for your time and consideration.

With warm regards,
Marcus Thompson
Enclosed · Portfolio, case studies, references on request