Lead Industrial Designer

Overlay; Oakland, Northern (CA, KY); Hybrid; USD 150,000 - 200,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

Generous equity

Top-tier health benefits

401(k) matching

Paid time off

Downtown Oakland office

Job summary

Overlay, a bold Oakland startup, is building a first-of-its-kind intelligent makeup robot. You will own the industrial design direction for new products, driving form, CMF, and usability from concept to production while coordinating with engineering and external partners.

The role is senior yet hands-on, with a path to establish Overlay's internal ID capability and to set the bar for future hires. Expect close collaboration with founders and a strong emphasis on premium, approachable design.

Qualifications

• 7+ years in industrial design, or equivalent shipped work, with ownership from concept to production.
• Advanced 3D CAD and surfacing skills in SolidWorks, Onshape, Rhino, or Alias, plus strong rendering and visualization ability.
• A portfolio with range showing form development, proportion, detail resolution, CMF judgment, and work with personality.
• Strong knowledge of materials, manufacturing processes, prototyping, ergonomics, tolerances, and DFM.
• Comfort with ambiguity, leading direction, and delivering work without an in-house design team.

Responsibilities

• Own Overlay's industrial design direction across new products.
• Lead the industrial design process from requirements and concept through refined CAD, CMF, and fabrication-ready design intent.
• Create sketches, storyboards, renderings, surface models, and full-scale mockups to make decisions concrete.
• Collaborate with mechanical engineering to resolve architecture, packaging constraints, tolerances, assembly, and serviceability.
• Direct internal design, model-making, and fabrication partners with clear reviews, decisions, and handoffs.
• Maintain design intent through DFM, supplier reviews, EVT/DVT/PVT, and establish internal design tools and standards.

Skills

Industrial design

Product development

Human factors

CMF judgment

Prototyping

Design for manufacturing

Tools

SolidWorks

Onshape

Rhino

Alias

Rendering

Job description

About Overlay

Overlay is building the world's first intelligent makeup robot—reimagining beauty application through robotics, perception, and design. As a venture-backed, pre-launch startup, we're defining a new category of personal robotics at the intersection of self-expression and engineering. Our system operates directly on the human face, requiring an unprecedented level of precision, safety, and real-world robustness.

We've raised significant funding and we're a small, technical team building in person in Oakland. We're making something real that doesn't exist yet - and we're looking for an industrial designer to shape the physical product experience customers will see, touch, and trust.

The Role

You’ll be our first in-house industrial designer, joining while our external industrial design firm is still deeply involved.

This is a senior role, but it's a builder's role too. You’ll work closely with the founder, our founding digital designer, and engineering, with support from external partners where it makes sense. This is our first step toward moving Overlay's industrial design capability in-house and you’ll set the bar for everyone who joins after you.

Our customer has high standards and great taste. Physical design that reaches her has to feel premium, approachable, and a little magic — across a robot, an in-store station, and every detail she touches.

What makes this role exciting:

• You’ll take ownership of a new program that will get a lot of visibility when we launch.
• The product is genuinely fun to design for. Form, human factors, CMF, interaction, and retail experience are one canvas.
• The robot, consumables, accessories, and packaging will move under you over time but you’ll continue getting external support throughout our early manufacturing runs.
• You’ll work closely with the founder and engineering team, prototype at full scale, and see your decisions become real quickly.

What You’ll Do

• Own Overlay's industrial design direction across new products.
• Lead the industrial design from requirements and concept selection through refined CAD, CMF, appearance models, and fabrication-ready design intent.
• Create sketches, storyboards, high-quality renderings, surface models, and full-scale mockups that make decisions concrete.
• Partner with mechanical engineering to resolve component architecture, packaging constraints, tolerances, assembly, cleaning, serviceability, and accessibility without losing design intent.
• Direct industrial design, model-making, and fabrication partners during the transition, with clear reviews, decisions, documentation, and handoffs.
• Carry design intent through DFM, supplier reviews, prototype builds, EVT, DVT, and PVT while establishing Overlay's internal industrial design tools and file standards.

What We're Looking For

• 7+ years in industrial design, or an equivalent body of shipped work, with ownership from early concept through production.
• Advanced 3D CAD and surfacing skills in tools such as SolidWorks, Onshape, Rhino, or Alias, plus strong rendering and visualization ability.
• A portfolio with range: exceptional form development, proportion, detail resolution, CMF judgment, and work with personality.
• Strong working knowledge of materials, manufacturing processes, prototyping, ergonomics, tolerances, and DFM.
• Ease with ambiguity, change, and the occasional blank page — you set direction, make the work, and ship without an industrial design team around you.

Bonus Points

• Experience with consumer hardware, robotics, beauty devices, wearables, or other products that operate close to the body.
• Experience designing retail fixtures or attended service experiences.
• Knowledge of accessibility and human-factors testing for a broad range of users.
• Experience bringing industrial design in-house from an external agency or building an ID function from scratch.
• A real love of makeup, skincare, beauty, and its subcultures.
• Mandarin speaker. Some members are based in China and our weekly meetings include a mix of English and Chinese, with engineering team members traveling back and forth.

Benefits

• Highly competitive salary & generous early-stage equity
• Best-in-class medical, dental & vision insurance
• 401(k) matching program
• Flexible Time Off with 10 paid holidays
• Commuter benefits
• Office in downtown Oakland near 19th Street BART station

The Team

• Small, fast-moving team with high ownership and low process
• Strong bias toward shipping, learning, and iterating quickly
• In-person collaboration in our Oakland office

Culture & Values

1. Move Fast, Move Smart: act quickly, with good judgment.
2. Ownership: see things through, from idea to result.
3. Disagree, Then Commit: talk it out openly, then row in the same direction.
4. Intellectual Honesty: be candid, stay curious, follow the evidence.
5. Show, Don't Tell: real, working results over talk.

Compensation: The annual salary range for this position is $150K - $200K annually based on level in addition to equity & benefits.

Overlay is an equal opportunity employer and we welcome applicants from all backgrounds.