Senior Industrial Designer - Concept

Vuly Play; Los Angeles (CA); On-site; USD 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Direct line to CEO ownership of what’s

Global design and manufacturing teams

Job summary

Vuly Play seeks a dynamic Industrial/Product Designer to lead a new Concept Incubator Team. You will turn CEO conversations into sketches the same day, drive rapid prototyping within weeks, and develop validated concepts for market. You will coordinate with global teams to refine and manufacture ideas.

The role emphasizes fast iteration, multiple directions, and strong visuals for testing viability, margin, and brand fit across regions (Asia, Australia, and beyond).

Qualifications

• Tertiary qualification in Industrial or Product Design.
• 3+ years in a concept/product/industrial design role.
• Strong speed in product visualisation from idea to sketches.

Responsibilities

• Travel to Hong Kong & China (~3 months+ per year) to collaborate with R&D divisions.
• Create concept sketches, concept art and 3D CAD models for rapid prototyping.
• Test concepts for materials, fabrication methods and unit cost; prototype to validate form and function.
• Produce animation and TVC-ready visuals for stakeholder buy-in and external partners.

Skills

Rapid concept visualisation

Hand and digital sketching

3D CAD & surface modelling

Rendering (KeyShot/Blender)

AI tooling for acceleration

Education

Bachelor-level degree in Industrial/Product Design

Tools

SolidWorks

Rhino

Fusion 360

KeyShot

Blender

Job description

Turn ideas into products, before anyone else has seen them

Vuly designs and manufactures outdoor play equipment sold around the world. We're building a small Concept Incubator Team that sits right at the front of the product pipeline — and we're looking for the designer who will run it.

This is the role where an idea becomes real. You'll take a conversation with the CEO and turn it into sketches the same day, prototypes within weeks, and a protected, validated concept the wider business can take to market. Our Industrial Design teams in Kuala Lumpur and Australia handle refinement, styling and manufacture — your job is to hand them something worth building.

If you like sitting with one idea for six months, this isn't it. If you like getting five directions on the table by Friday, read on.

What you'll actually do

Travel the Globe. ~3 months+ a year travel to Hong Kong & China (Shenzhen) to collaborate with key R&D divisions working on rapid concepting & prototyping.

Make ideas visible, fast. Concept sketches, concept art and illustration quick enough to make an idea discussable within hours rather than weeks. Then develop the strongest directions into 3D CAD and surface models ready for rendering and prototyping. We'd rather see several distinct directions explored than one option polished too early.

Prove it works. Test whether a concept stacks up technically and commercially — materials, manufacturing method, indicative tooling and unit cost. Build physical and digital prototypes to validate form, ergonomics, scale and function. Pressure-test each concept with the CEO against margin, brand fit and business objectives, and make the call on whether it proceeds, gets reworked or gets stopped.

Sell it to any room. Produce animation and TVC-standard assets that present a concept as though it's already a finished product, and tailor the same idea for executives, retailers, manufacturing partners and consumers. Your visuals are what we use to test viability and viral potential in market.

Protect it. Work alongside Legal and external patent attorneys to establish the IP position — identifying and articulating what's genuinely novel, producing line drawings and technical illustration to filing standard, proofreading draft patent and design-registration filings, reviewing competitor products and prior art, and keeping dated development records that hold up under challenge.

Hand it over properly. The design brief is the principal output of this role. You'll capture the design intent, the evidence behind it and the constraints found in R&D, so decisions aren't relitigated downstream. You'll set out what must be preserved (the features carrying the IP position) and what's open to restyling, package the models, prototype findings, cost assumptions and filing status, and stay available to the KL and Australian teams as they take it forward.

What we're looking for

• Tertiary qualification in Industrial or Product Design, or an equivalent portfolio of delivered commercial work


• [3]+ years in a concept, product or industrial design role — ideally having taken a product from sketch through to production


• Exceptional speed in product visualisation: verbal idea to communicable visual within hours


• Strong hand and digital sketching, concept art and illustration


• 3D CAD and surface modelling (SolidWorks, Rhino, Fusion 360) with photoreal rendering (KeyShot, Blender)


• A working command of emerging tools, including AI, and how to use them to accelerate a project


• Line drawings and technical illustration to patent and design-registration standard, with the written precision to proofread a filing


• Proven ability to write a brief a downstream team can act on without you in the room, across sites and time zones


• Openness to direct feedback from senior stakeholders at any stage, without losing pace


• Open to regular and consistent travel to key R&D teams in the Asia region


• Motion graphics, animation and video production to TVC-ready standard


• Design-for-manufacture knowledge (moulding, tooling, materials)


• Experience with design or manufacturing partners in South-East Asia


• Prior-art or freedom-to-operate searching, or experience supporting granted filings


• Background in a fast-paced start-up or founder-led environment

How you'll work

We move fast and show work early rather than waiting for certainty. You'll need to hold ideas loosely — welcoming challenges at any stage and separating your ego from the concept — and stay commercially curious, asking whether an idea will land, not only whether it's well designed. Where it counts, we're rigorous: a filing drawing gets the same care as a hero render.

What we offer

• Direct line to the CEO and genuine ownership of what gets made


• A global business with design and manufacturing teams across Australia, Kuala Lumpur and Asia