eBay Looks for Talent in Toronto to Help It Design AI Shopping

eBay’s job posting for an Agentic Search Product Designer in Toronto sheds light on its ambitions – which are to change the way the world shops and sells and reinvent the future of ecommerce for enthusiasts, according to the job description. It’s also another indicator of how the Canadian office is playing a crucial role in fulfilling those ambitions.

eBay recently opened a new office in Toronto and named Ashley Lawrence its new General Manager of eBay’s marketplace business in Canada. According to a post from Seller Events Manager Victoria Oliveira, eBay is bringing Canada and the US together under one North America organization.

eBay laid off 6% of its workforce this year, but that doesn’t mean it stopped hiring. eBay hosted a recruiting event at its new Toronto office last week called “Inside eBay Design: Craft, Community & Careers, an evening of connection, conversation, and community in Toronto,” co-hosted with the Interaction Design Foundation (IxDF).

It was described as bringing together members of the local design community to meet the team behind eBay Design. “You’ll hear how we approach craft at scale, collaborate across disciplines, and design experiences that impact millions of buyers and sellers worldwide.” It offered attendees the opportunity to meet with eBay’s designers and recruiters.

The Product Designer eBay is seeking for its Agentic Search team “will design and build relevant, human and magical shopping experiences” and will “work with leaders across eBay to improve the end-to-end agentic search experience for eBay customers as well as crafting the comprehensive AI experience.”

The role also calls for the designer to “Operate as a “Co-Founder” within the cross-functional product team by identifying and validating user problems, producing inventive and thoughtful solutions for users and the business, and shipping meaningful product updates that deliver tangible results.”

Another eBay Toronto job posting, this one for a Senior Product Manager of Search AI, confirms eBay is looking for ways to add AI features to search. One paragraph outlines the responsibilities of the eBay Search team: “The Search team is responsible for the search page that drives a large part of eBay’s core marketplace business.

The Search team strives to build an experience that enables users to easily explore, find, and buy what they want at the best value through an engaging, frictionless, and trusted Search experience, helping them make confident purchase decisions.” The following paragraph continues: “In this role, you will be responsible to drive growth through Search.

Your expertise will drive the development of AI-driven features that improve product discovery, engagement, and user experience. The ideal candidate will have a strong background in AI/ML technologies, along with a passion for applying these skills to redefine the way customers interact with our platform.”

eBay is also seeking a Senior Staff Product Designer for AI Shopping in its Toronto office who will “work end-to-end across the buyer journey, identifying where intelligent, personalized, and AI-driven experiences can solve customer problems and create delight.

This is a deeply hands-on role that blends strategy with exceptional craft: you’ll translate bold ideas into innovative design solutions, systems, and high-fidelity prototypes that set direction for execution across teams.

With close partnership with senior product and engineering leaders, and the opportunity to work at extensive scale, this role offers a rare chance to shape category-defining experiences and help design what the next era of commerce looks like.”

While Amazon and Walmart have AI “shopping assistants,” eBay CEO Jamie Iannone told Wall Street it is integrating agentic AI directly into search and said eBay had begun rolling out agentic search to a subset of its US mobile traffic in December.