2025 Concept Designer - Early Career Concepting & Development Program

Are you a recent Industrial Design graduate or an early-career designer with 1-2 years of experience, bursting with ideas and eager to shape the future of mobility?

Ford Motor Company is looking for passionate and talented Industrial Designers to join a unique 3-year rotational program designed to build well-rounded design innovators with a deep understanding of concepting, market dynamics, and human-centered design. This program is an incredible opportunity to gain diverse experience across key strategic functions before specializing back in product concepting.

About the Program:

This isn't just a job; it's a structured launchpad for your career at Ford. Over three years, you will participate in three distinct, one-year rotations:

1. Opportunity / Product Concepting (Year 1): Dive deep into the core of design innovation. You'll work alongside experienced designers, strategists, and engineers to explore and visualize future product and service concepts. This is where your sketching, modeling, and visualization skills will be put to the test to bring abstract ideas to life.
2. Advanced Marketing (Year 2): Step outside the traditional design studio and into the world of market strategy and consumer insights. You'll learn how concepts are positioned, how target audiences are identified, and how market trends influence product development. This rotation will help you understand the business context and consumer relevance of your design work.
3. Human-Centered Design (HCD) / User Experience Research (Year 3): Immerse yourself in understanding the people who use our products and services. You'll learn and apply HCD methodologies, conduct user research, analyze needs, and contribute to creating truly user-centric solutions. This experience will ground your design thinking in real-world human needs and behaviors.

The program is designed with the expectation that upon successful completion, you will transition into a role primarily focused on Opportunity / Product Concepting within Ford Design or a related innovation team, bringing with you a richer perspective gained from your rotations in Marketing and HCD.

About the Role:

As an Industrial Designer in this program, you won't just be executing tasks; you'll be contributing fresh perspectives and creative energy across different teams. You will:

• Actively participate in brainstorming and concept generation sessions.
• Utilize your design skills (sketching, 2D/3D modeling, rendering, prototyping) to visualize and communicate ideas.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams including other designers, engineers, researchers, strategists, and marketing professionals.
• Learn and apply different methodologies (design thinking, HCD, market analysis basics).
• Present your work and insights to various stakeholders.
• Absorb knowledge and mentorship from seasoned professionals across the company.
• Contribute to projects that could shape the future of transportation and mobility services.

This role demands curiosity, adaptability, strong communication skills, and a genuine passion for both the craft of design and the broader context of product development and user needs.

Responsibilities Will Include (but are not limited to, varying by rotation):

• In Concepting: Developing sketches, digital renderings, 3D models (using software like Alias, Rhino, SolidWorks, Blender, VRED, etc.), creating compelling presentations, exploring future trends and technologies.
• In Advanced Marketing: Analyzing market data, assisting in developing target customer profiles, understanding brand guidelines, contributing design perspectives to marketing briefs, researching competitive landscapes.
• In HCD/Research: Participating in user interviews and observations, helping to create user journey maps and personas, contributing to usability testing sessions, synthesizing research findings, creating low-fidelity prototypes for testing.
• Throughout the Program: Documenting your work and process, presenting project updates, actively seeking feedback, building relationships across the company, participating in program-specific training and development activities.

Basic Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Industrial Design, Product Design, Transportation Design, or a related field (degree must be completed by start date).
• 0-2 years of experience in Industrial Design (relevant internships are highly valued and count towards experience).
• A strong portfolio demonstrating concept exploration, sketching, 2D/3D modeling, rendering skills, and an understanding of the des