Product Development Specialist (Makeup Artist)

Overlay•Oakland, CA

12d•$80,000 - $120,000•Onsite

About The Position

Overlay is building the world's first intelligent makeup robot, aiming to revolutionize beauty application through robotics, perception, and design. As a venture-backed, pre-launch startup, we are defining a new category of personal robotics at the intersection of self-expression and engineering. Our system operates directly on the human face, requiring a high degree of precision, safety, and real-world robustness. We are a small, highly technical team working collaboratively in person in Oakland.

Requirements

4+ years of hands-on makeup artistry, with professional experience across a range of skin tones, types, and face shapes.
A trained eye for distinguishing a good application from a great one.
Structured-evaluation discipline, including comfort scoring work against a rubric and writing clear, repeatable QA-style documentation.
Precision and consistency; detail-oriented with the discipline to apply the same standard consistently.
Direct, low-ego collaboration, comfortable giving and receiving direct feedback.
Dependability in an early-stage, in-office environment.
Strong communication skills.
Ability to work hands-on with test subjects as the system applies makeup directly on real faces.

Nice To Haves

Product/formulation literacy, including experience evaluating or developing cosmetic products (formulation, product development, lab, or sensory/quality evaluation) with the ability to describe formula performance in technical terms.
Cosmetic chemistry coursework or formal product-development training.
Consistent visual documentation skills, including photography and lighting sense for capturing results reproducibly.

Responsibilities

Evaluate cosmetic formulations, assessing texture, payoff, layering, wear, dry-down, finish, and skin compatibility, and how each formula behaves when machine-applied versus hand-applied. Recommend formulation adjustments based on observations.
Evaluate robot applications by running sessions and scoring results against professional standards, including coverage, blending, symmetry, edge quality, finish, wear, and skin compatibility.
Score and document results consistently, rating each application against a rubric and writing clear, repeatable feedback for the team and system. Capture findings in a structured, data-friendly form and identify patterns across rounds.
Demonstrate target results by hand to provide engineering with a concrete reference for the robot's objectives.
Translate subjective feedback like 'this looks off' into specific, actionable observations and collaborate with engineering on iterative improvements.