Head of Industrial Design, Hardware

AI Foundry•Seattle, WA

6d•$225,000 - $350,000

About The Position

AI Foundry is an AI building and consulting business working with some of the largest companies in the world. AI Foundry is partnered with a major global company operating across finance, consumer, and retail verticals, leading their AI efforts from the ground up. The team is seeking builders who want to be part of something massive: designing and building multi-agent AI systems that will reshape how hundreds of millions of people interact with financial services, retail, insurance, and consumer products. AI Foundry is looking for a Head of Industrial Design to define the physical product experience for a hardware business being built from the ground up. This person will lead design vision, user experience, form, materials, ergonomics, prototyping, and the connection between product intent and engineering execution. If you can create hardware that feels considered, useful, manufacturable, and differentiated, we want to hear from you.

Requirements

Led industrial design for hardware products that reached production or serious validation.
Strong taste, strong craft, and the ability to make design direction tangible quickly.
Understand materials, manufacturing processes, ergonomics, prototyping, and physical product constraints.
Can collaborate deeply with engineering and manufacturing without losing the quality of the product experience.
Communicate design rationale clearly to executives, engineers, vendors, and operators.
Can move from open-ended concept work to practical production decisions.
Comfortable building a design function from scratch.
Can hold a high bar without becoming precious or disconnected from execution.
Energized by creating products that feel useful, polished, and memorable.
Use modern tools, including AI where useful, to accelerate exploration and communication.

Responsibilities

Define the industrial design vision for hardware products from early concept through production.
Lead form, materials, ergonomics, interaction touchpoints, CMF direction, prototyping, and design validation.
Translate product strategy and user needs into physical design concepts that can be engineered and manufactured.
Work closely with mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, manufacturing, product, and leadership.
Create sketches, models, prototypes, design systems, presentation materials, and decision-ready artifacts.
Hold a high bar for craft, usability, fit, finish, and product coherence.
Navigate tradeoffs between design intent, technical constraints, cost, manufacturing, durability, and schedule.
Build and lead an industrial design function as the hardware organization scales.
Represent design in leadership conversations with clarity, conviction, and practical judgment.