Senior Experiential Designer, Brand & Immersive Experiences

Russell Tobin; New York (NY); Hybrid; USD 255,000 - 276,000; Full time

Job summary

Russell Tobin is seeking a Senior Experiential Designer to shape brand and immersive experiences from concept through production. You will craft experiences at a global scale, blending strategy, storytelling, spatial design, and technology to turn AI concepts into tangible, human-focused installations.

You will collaborate across teams to pitch bold directions, translate complex briefs into compelling experiences, and manage hands-on creation from sketch to fabrication while maintaining design

Qualifications

• Portfolio demonstrating exceptional experiential, immersive, environmental, exhibition, installation, live event, show, or branded-space work.
• Experience developing large-scale, highly conceptual brand experiences, not just booths.
• Ability to generate multiple creative directions from an ambiguous brief with clear reasoning.
• Deep understanding of global brands, technology, design, storytelling, culture and human behavior.

Responsibilities

• Create the big idea and translate it into a distinctive experiential concept.
• Design the full journey from arrival to exit, focusing on human behavior and participation.
• Translate AI into the physical world with responsive, real-time environments.
• Pitch bold creative directions and proactively develop opportunities.
• Sketch, model, prototype, and develop concepts into production-ready experiences.
• Bring concepts to life by developing drawings, specs, and coordinating vendors.
• Develop a global experiential design language across environments.
• Partner with cross-disciplinary teams to ensure creative and technical credibility.

Skills

Experiential design

Large-scale experiences

3D modeling

Prototyping

Storytelling

Presentation

AI in design

Tools

Rhino

Blender

Cinema 4D

SketchUp

Figma

Adobe CC

Job description

Senior Experiential Designer, Brand & Immersive Experiences

Location: New York, NY 10013 — Hybrid / In Office
Contract: 12-month W2 contract with potential to extend
Pay: $185-$200/hour, based on experience
Travel: Domestic and international travel required
Portfolio / Work Samples: Required
Interview Process: 2 rounds

Russell Tobin is partnering with a leading AI technology company to hire a Senior Experiential Designer, Brand & Immersive Experiences to help define how one of the most important emerging technologies in the world shows up in physical space.

This is not a traditional trade show design role.

We’re looking for someone who thinks at the scale of a global brand platform, major live show, cultural event, immersive installation, or iconic launch moment—someone capable of asking what the experience should mean before deciding what it should look like.

Think less “design a booth” and more: How would you conceive an experience at the scale of the Olympics, a halftime show, a global fashion production, or a major technology launch— and make an abstract technology feel tangible, human, and unforgettable?

The right person combines strategy, storytelling, spatial design, technology, human behavior, and world-class creative execution. You can pitch the big idea, build the experience, and stay close enough to the work to make sure the final result lives up to the concept.

What You’ll Do

Create the big idea. Take an objective, business need, or open-ended brief and develop distinctive experiential concepts around it. Define what an audience should understand, feel, or do before determining the physical execution.

Build experiences, not just environments. Design the full journey—arrival, orientation, participation, interaction, discovery, and exit. Think deeply about human behavior: where people stop, what draws them in, what they touch, where attention drops, and what transforms passive viewing into meaningful participation.

Translate AI into the physical world. Explore how AI can become part of the experience itself—not simply content displayed on a screen. Prototype environments that can respond, adapt, generate, communicate, and interact with people in real time.

Pitch bold creative directions. Approximately 20% of the role will involve proactive concept development and strategic pitching for future experiential opportunities, alongside an established calendar of events and programs.

Work hands-on from concept through execution. Sketch, model, visualize, prototype, test, iterate, and develop concepts into production-ready experiences. You should be equally comfortable presenting the strategic narrative and getting deep into the design.

Bring the work to life. Develop drawing sets and specifications, partner with fabricators, production companies, AV teams, technologists, and other vendors, and maintain creative quality through fabrication, installation, and show execution.

Create a global experiential design language. Develop reusable principles, systems, and components that create a recognizable brand presence across different environments without producing the same experience repeatedly.

Partner across disciplines. Collaborate with teams spanning brand, marketing, communications, product, research, technology, workplace, and production to ensure every experience is both creatively compelling and technically credible.

What We’re Looking For

• Portfolio demonstrating exceptional experiential, immersive, environmental, exhibition, installation, live event, show, or branded-space work, from initial concept through final execution
• Experience developing large-scale, highly conceptual brand experiences, not simply executing conventional trade show booths
• Ability to generate multiple genuinely different creative directions from an ambiguous brief and articulate the strategic reasoning behind each
• Strong understanding of global brands, technology, design, storytelling, culture, and human behavior
• Deep understanding of how people move through, engage with, and respond to physical environments
• Hands‑on expertise across spatial design, 3D modeling, visualization, prototyping, materials, and production
• Experience with tools such as Rhino, Blender, Cinema 4D, SketchUp, Figma, and/or Adobe Creative Suite
• Experience integrating disciplines such as interactive design, content, film, motion graphics, show design, lighting, sound, and digital technology into a cohesive experience
• Experience developing drawing sets and working directly with fabricators, AV partners, production teams, and vendors through installation
• Ability to independently take a project from an unclear brief to a finished, built experience
• Exceptional presentation and communication skills, including the ability to sell ambitious concepts to both creative and non‑creative stakeholders
• Strong working knowledge of current AI technologies and enthusiasm for incorporating AI into the creative and prototyping process
• Comfort traveling domestically and internationally for shows, installations, and major experiential moments

What Will Set You Apart

You don't begin with the booth, the floor plan, or the screen.

You begin with the question:

What should someone understand when they leave this experience that they didn't understand when they walked in?

Then you figure out how to build it.

We're looking for someone who can think strategically at a global level, concept like a creative director, design like a world‑class experiential designer, prototype like a maker, embrace AI as a creative material, and stay close enough to production to ensure the final experience delivers on the original idea.

If your portfolio shows that kind of range and ambition, we'd like to see it.

Russell Tobin offers eligible employee’s comprehensive healthcare coverage (medical, dental, and vision plans), supplemental coverage (accident insurance, critical illness insurance and hospital indemnity), 401(k)-retirement savings, life & disability insurance, an employee assistance program, legal support, auto, home insurance, pet insurance and employee discounts with preferred vendors.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Russell Tobin is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of the race, religious creed, color, national origin, ancestry, physical disability, mental disability, reproductive health decision making, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, age, sexual orientation, veteran or military status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.

Fair Chance Employment

Russell Tobinis a Fair Chance employer. We consider all qualified applicants, including those with criminal histories, in a manner consistent with applicable state and local Fair Chance laws and ordinances, including, the California Fair Chance Act and all applicable local Fair Chance ordinances.

Accommodations

We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants and employees with disabilities. If you require a reasonable accommodation to participate in the application or interview process, or to perform the essential functions of this role, please contact us.

Only applicable for San Francisco Candidates: Under the San Francisco Lactation in the Workplace Ordinance, we will provide written notice of lactation accommodation rights, and this notice will automatically be given upon hiring, any inquiry of parental leave or lactation accommodation.