Senior Industrial Designer

Sidekick; Toronto; Hybrid; CAD 80,000 - 100,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid with work-from-home days

Competitive compensation

Performance-based bonus

Job summary

Sidekick is hiring an Industrial Designer to lead concept development and design execution across our product portfolio. You will generate innovative concepts, build prototypes, and refine products based on real user feedback.

Close collaboration with Product Managers, physiotherapists, and manufacturing partners will bring briefs to golden samples. You will drive ergonomic and aesthetic decisions, work with both rigid and soft materials, and ensure designs meet manufacturing constraints in a

Qualifications

• Prolific concept generation across the full solution space before converging.
• Strong visual communication through sketches, renders, or quick visuals.
• Hands-on prototyping with foam, fabric, off-the-shelf hardware, and 3D printing.
• Experience with rigid and textile/soft goods in product design.
• Design for manufacturability: thinking tooling, tolerances, and assembly early.
• Ability to run user research, synthesize feedback, and translate into decisions.
• Collaborative work style within PMs, physios, and engineers.

Responsibilities

• Generate 10-20+ diverse product concepts per brief across mechanisms, materials, and ergonomics.
• Benchmark and conduct ergonomic research to guide direction.
• Visualize concepts via sketches, renders, or quick mockups.
• Build early-stage mockups to validate mechanisms and usability.
• Lead focus group testing and synthesize feedback.
• Refine comfort, usability, aesthetics, and interaction design from testing outcomes.
• Collaborate with engineering and manufacturing to optimize for production.
• Support development of the golden sample meeting quality and manufacturability standards.

Skills

Prolific concept generator

Strong visual communicator

Hands-on prototyper

Hard and soft goods experience

Understands manufacturability

User-research capable

Collaborative

Job description

Hybrid (Toronto) | Full-Time | $80,000-$100,000 CAD

Our Core Values

• Results Oriented - you own the outcome and do whatever it takes to deliver it.
• Effective Above All - we focus on the highest-leverage work and make it count.
• Best in Class - we hold elite standards; good enough isn’t.
• Customer-Obsessed - every decision is made in service of the customer’s success.

About Sidekick

At Sidekick, our mission is simple: help people recover faster from persistent injuries. Trusted by Olympic champions and everyday individuals, our products have been featured in Men’s Health, Running Magazine, and more. With 94% of users reporting relief from chronic pain, we’re on a mission to become the go-to injury relief brand.

About the Role

As we continue to grow our line of rehabilitation and pain relief products, we're looking for an Industrial Designer to lead concept development and design execution across our product portfolio. You'll be the creative engine behind our product line — generating innovative concepts, building and testing prototypes, and refining products based on real user feedback. You'll work closely with our Product Manager, physiotherapists, and manufacturing partners to bring products from brief to golden sample.

Key Responsibilities

1) Concept Development Phase

• Generate 10-20+ diverse product concepts per brief, exploring varied mechanisms, materials, and ergonomic approaches
• Conduct benchmarking and ergonomic research to inform concept direction
• Rapidly visualize and communicate concepts through sketching, rendering, or quick mockups
• Build early-stage mockups to validate mechanisms and usability before committing to a direction
• Lead structured focus group testing sessions and synthesize ergonomic and user value feedback
• Refine comfort, usability, aesthetics, and interaction design based on testing outcomes
• Collaborate with engineering and manufacturing partners to optimize designs for production
• Support development of the golden sample, ensuring the final design meets quality and manufacturability standards

Skills, Experience & Ideal Fit

• Prolific concept generator - you explore the full solution space before converging, not just iterating on what exists
• Strong visual communicator - sketches, renders, or whatever gets the idea across quickly
• Hands-on prototyper - comfortable with foam, fabric, off-the-shelf hardware, 3D printing, whatever the fidelity calls for
• Hard and soft goods experience - our products combine rigid structures with textiles and straps, so both matter
• Understands manufacturability - you think about tooling, tolerances, and assembly from the start, not at handoff
• User-research capable - you can run a focus group, synthesize feedback, and translate it into design decisions
• Collaborative - you'll work within a structured process alongside PMs, physios, and engineers, not in isolation
• Competitive compensation + Performance-based bonus
• Dedicated, collaborative, and supportive colleagues
• Fast-paced, dynamic environment
• Opportunity to shape entire product lines from concept through production
• Hybrid with work-from-home days