Lead Industrial Designer

dot.cards•Los Angeles, CA

8d•Onsite

About The Position

dot.cards is building the platform for what happens after people connect in the real world. We began by making it effortless to share all of your most important info with a tap. With 2.5M+ devices sold and 100M+ in-person connections facilitated, we have an established audience and a foundation for bringing new products to market at scale. Our next chapter brings together connected hardware and software that help people exchange information, capture conversations, and follow through. From products people carry every day to devices used by teams and businesses, physical design is central to how that experience works and feels. We are a revenue-backed, fast-growing company based in Los Angeles, creating new ways for technology to fit naturally into real-world interactions. THE ROLE We are hiring a Lead Industrial Designer to own industrial design across dot.cards’ entire physical product lineup. From NFC cards, wearables, and accessories to countertop displays and our unreleased AI hardware, you will shape products that connect the physical and digital experience. You will bring a cohesive design language to the portfolio, its packaging, and future hardware while meeting the needs of each product and its customers. You will work closely with our product and software teams, engineers, and manufacturing partners to turn ideas into products that are intuitive to use and practical to manufacture. You will set the design direction, guide external partners, and stay hands-on from early concepts through production. This role offers the creative scope to shape new product categories and improve products already used by millions of people.

Requirements

8+ years of industrial design experience, with multiple consumer products taken from early concept through mass production
A portfolio demonstrating excellent form development, proportions, material selection, and usability, with final manufactured products that reflect the original design intent
Experience leading design across a product family or multiple concurrent products, with a clear point of view on how they belong together
Strong hands-on CAD, surfacing, rendering, and physical prototyping skills using SolidWorks, Rhino, KeyShot, or equivalent tools
Practical understanding of injection molding, metal fabrication, surface finishes, tooling, and assembly, and the ability to work through constraints with engineers and manufacturers
Experience working directly with overseas manufacturing partners, reviewing samples, and resolving issues through production
The ability to lead designers and external partners while remaining deeply involved in the work, from evaluating concepts to refining small physical details
Clear communication, sound commercial judgment, and a collaborative approach to making decisions in a fast-moving company

Nice To Haves

Experience with connected devices, consumer electronics, audio products, wearables, or NFC-enabled accessories
Experience developing packaging and scalable personalization systems across multiple materials and manufacturing processes
Experience helping a growing brand expand its product portfolio and build an internal industrial design practice
Proficient in Adobe Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign)

Responsibilities

Own industrial design across the full portfolio, balancing new product development with thoughtful improvements to existing products, accessories, and packaging
Define and evolve a recognizable dot.cards design language across form, proportions, colors, materials, finishes, and physical interactions
Partner with the Product team to shape the hardware roadmap, using customer insight and commercial judgment to prioritize new concepts, product refreshes, and line extensions
Observe how customers carry and use our products, and turn those insights into concepts that meet real needs and feel natural in everyday use
Personally develop sketches, CAD models, renderings, and physical prototypes to explore ideas and test form, ergonomics, and usability
Partner with product, UI designers, and Engineering to create a cohesive experience across hardware and software
Own color, material, and finish specifications and physical reference samples, maintaining consistency across product families, variants, and production runs
Refine existing products for durability, fit, finish, and feel, using customer feedback, returns, and sample testing to guide improvements
Lead packaging and unboxing design with Brand and Operations, including practical approaches to personalization, printing, and engraving across the lineup
Work directly with mechanical and electrical engineers and manufacturing partners on component integration, tooling, assembly, and design for manufacturability while preserving design intent
Own clear design handoffs, including CAD, design specifications, finish requirements, cosmetic acceptance criteria, and approved reference samples
Lead design reviews of factory samples from prototype through tooling and production, resolving material, construction, and finish issues with manufacturers
Make thoughtful tradeoffs among design quality, durability, unit cost, tooling investment, and launch timing with Engineering, Procurement, and Operations
Manage the work of external studios and specialists, and give clear feedback that raises the quality of the final product
Own design priorities, schedules, and reviews across concurrent projects, keeping partners informed of decisions, dependencies, and risks
Build reusable design standards and organized CAD, material, and sample libraries, and help grow the industrial design team as the portfolio expands