Senior Industrial Designer

We are the movers of the world and the makers of the future. We get up every day, roll up our sleeves and build a better world -- together. At Ford, we’re all a part of something bigger than ourselves. Are you ready to change the way the world moves?

In this position...

The HCD Team is responsible for the end-to-end experience, including digital and physical design of new businesses, new products, and new services. We are looking for creative individuals to join us and help further the vision and mission of HCD Ford’s team. We are committed to envisioning and crafting simple, thoughtful, enjoyable, and compelling products and services for customers!

The position requires demonstrable expertise in physical product solutions with strong visual design work, design sensibility, and articulate storytelling.

You’ll be responsible for concepting and sketching, designing low to high fidelity design prototypes, leading workshops, and managing asset production through the life cycle of assigned projects, pilots, and research initiatives

What you'll do…

• Know and love your discipline as a passionate Subject Matter Expert demonstrating senior-level expertise in the relevant fundamentals and tools while using them in modern ways and maintaining a desire to learn from others and grow. 
• Be curious, courageous, creative, and capable by asking questions, experimenting, and sharing ideas to solve problems and create designs that address real customer needs.
• Bring clarity and focus through effective communication of functional needs and aesthetic sensibilities while representing our team in an advanced product development environment and building relationships and with engineering, planning, and research stakeholders.
• Demonstrate leadership throughout the entire design process from inspiration and research to building prototypes and communicating a vision - bringing to life integrated digital-physical experiences through brand, products, and services.
• Inspire a project team to conceive, design, develop, test, and launch impactful new products and services, applying systems thinking to experience design that seamlessly engages people.
• Identify design opportunities and actionable concepts that align with user and business needs, design principles, and technical capabilities.
• Apply systems thinking to physical experience design that seamlessly engages people through touchpoints along a service journey for consumer and business applications.
• Collaborate on designing, making, and testing new solutions through experiments and prototypes at varying levels of fidelity–from sketches, renderings, CAD models and animations to functional prototypes and build-ready assets.

You'll have...

• Bachelor’s Degree in Industrial Design, Transportation Design or related field
• 3+ years of automotive industrial design experience (exterior, interior, and components)
• Senior Designer level experience in a consumer product industry, transportation sector or supplier, design consultancy, or similar field
• Proficiency with Adobe Creative Suite design tools
• Proficiency with at least one 3D modeling software application (Alias AutoStudio, Rhino, or Blender)
• Proficiency in relevant presentation applications (PowerPoint, Keynote, or similar)

Even better, you may have...

• Exceptional creativity and demonstrated inventiveness towards features and functional solutions
• Exceptional ability to translate customer and research inputs into relevant, highly desirable, and feasible product solutions
• Exceptional communication skills through presentation and storytelling
• Exceptional product design aesthetic sensibilities
• Exceptional sketching, visualization, modelling, and presentation skills
• Exceptional 2D application skills (Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.)
• Exceptional 3D application skills (Alias AutoStudio, VRED, Rhino, Maya or Blender)
• 5+ years of Industrial Design or Transportation Design studio work experience
• Demonstrated ability to lead projects in a multidisciplinary team environment
• Demonstrated ability to build low fidelity prototypes (e.g. hands-on with cardboard, foam core, wood, laser cutting, 3D printing) and understanding of production methods and prototyping processes.
• Demonstrated ability to translate design vision in animated story-form through creative use of digital presentation applications
• Demonstrated ability to develop design proposals from concept to production
• Experience building inclusive and accessible design solutions

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