---
title: 'Industrial Designer, Contract-to-Hire at IDEO'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/industrial-designer-contract-to-hire-ideo-san-francisco-kpagcg2p50z3'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-11'
---

# Industrial Designer, Contract-to-Hire at IDEO

- **Company:** IDEO
- **Location:** San Francisco, CA
- **Posted:** 2026-07-13
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-11
- **Apply:** https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/ideo/jobs/8049844

## Job description

Industrial Designer

San Francisco, CA - Hybrid

At IDEO, we use design to create new products, services, experiences; tangible strategies; and creative capabilities.

IDEO San Francisco is in search of a new Industrial Designer to partner with interdisciplinary teams designing innovative and human-centered physical products and services. This role will own a hands-on workstream emphasizing creative problem solving, core industrial design skills, rapid prototyping and advanced visual storytelling. The ideal hire will champion hands-on making & prototyping, and collaborate fluidly with a wide variety of design professionals from communications design to UX researchers (and everything in between).This hire will have the unique opportunity to design cutting edge products, and grow as a Design Thinking practitioner within IDEO’s diverse network of Design Directors, Partners and Business Leaders.

At IDEO, an Industrial Designer is responsible for independently executing components of highly complex client projects, showcasing advanced skills in user-centered physical product design. You will integrate form and function, while balancing user needs and technical considerations to create solutions that resonate with users and businesses alike. What makes a career at IDEO unique is our radical empathy and compassion for the user, always leading with creative confidence and collaborative rigor. You will work with world-class researchers, business designers, data scientists, and others disciplines outside of design, to push the edges of your craft, creating solutions that are as inclusive as they are transformative.

We are especially excited to meet candidates with exceptional visual storytelling abilities, a drive to “get out from behind the screen” by prototyping in both digital and physical realms, and a grounding in design for manufacturing (DFM). This hire must be within a commutable distance of IDEO’s San Francisco studio. IDEO proudly supports flexible work.

Once here you will:

- Apply your expertise to develop compelling physical product designs and systems, balancing form, function, technical constraints and manufacturability.
- Collaborate with interdisciplinary teams, including mechanical/electrical engineers, software developers, visual and interaction designers, brand strategists, and design researchers.
- Present ideas through sketches, CAD models, renderings, and physical mock-ups to clients and team members.
- Actively contribute to and lead human-centered research to inform design strategies.
- Create prototypes at varying fidelities using tools such as 3D printing and other rapid prototyping methods to explore, test, validate design concepts, and aid research efforts.
- Drive cross-functional collaboration and demonstrate leadership over the course of 12+ week projects
- Deliver exceptional visual storytelling using an array of 2D and 3D tools and techniques, creating compelling presentations for clients.
- Explore early-stage inspiration through digital experimentation, including generative AI and other innovative tools.
- Mentor fellow designers within and across disciplines by sharing knowledge, articulating industrial design processes, and demonstrating advanced craft techniques.

Qualifications / Experience:

- 1-2+ years of experience + internships in industrial design, including end-to-end contributions to projects in consumer products, medical devices, soft goods or packaging.
- Demonstrated fluency in digital tools such as SolidWorks, Rhino, Keyshot, Blender, and Adobe Creative Suite.
- Go-to-market (GTM) experience, with the ability to meaningfully contribute to the associated industrial design workstreams within multidisciplinary teams.
- Prototyping expertise, including 3D printing and other rapid prototyping methods.
- A passion for building in 3D while actively prototyping in real time to test insights.
- Visual storytelling abilities, including strong instincts in graphic design and deck-building.
- Strong theoretical or practical understanding of and ability to collaborate on the design for manufacturing (DFM) process.
- Professional experience with one or more of the following:
- Consumer Electronics Design: complex surface design, integration of mechanical and electrical components like screens, speakers, and cameras
- Health and Medical Product Design: Usability and functionality with a focus on ergonomics and medical-specific requirements.
- Packaging Design: design of out-of-box experiences (OOBE), structural packaging design, and sustainability considerations.
- Curiosity and drive to grow in one or more edge skills:
- Strategy, Brand, Digital Interaction Design & Needfinding frameworks.
- Digital Interaction Design.
- Coding, Hacking, Software Development.
- AI-based Visualization Tools.
- Mechanical Engineering.

Salary & Benefits:

IDEO is committed to paying its employees equitably, regardless of gender identity or race/ethnicity/cultural identity. We support the holistic well-being of our community by providing a thoughtfully designed benefits package.

The salary range for this role is $70,000 - $80,000 USD. This range is influenced by several factors, including skills, experience, and geographic location. Final offers may vary based on these considerations.

Health Benefits: Vision, Dental, Healthcare

In addition to base compensation + Health Benefits, IDEO offers a rich benefits package including the following when officially a FTE:

Financial Benefits: 401K matching Family & Caregiving: Parental Leave, Adoption Assistance, Fertility Assistance, Transgender Medical Assistance, Breastmilk shipment, Back-up/Dependent Care, Pet Insurance Other Benefits: Flexible Work, Flexible Time Off, Paid Holidays, Annual Education Stipend, Home Office Stipend

Commitment to Diversity

At IDEO, we are committed to the work of advancing diversity, equity and inclusion within our organization and in the world. Our purpose of having disproportionate, world-changing impact through design is directly connected to our ability to bring many different perspectives to the table. This applies to our candidates, the people we hire, the clients and customers we serve, and the communities we learn from in our research.

As a human-centered organization, we are committed to working with and designing for people of every race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, socio-economic status, physical ability or attribute, religion, national origin, or political belief. We recognize that this commitment requires ongoing work and sustained attention, as well as adaptation to new insights and best practices.

## About IDEO

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: IDEO is a global design and innovation consultancy that helps organizations create human-centered products, services, and businesses using its pioneering Design Thinking methodology.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Privately Held)
- **Headquarters**: San Francisco, California, USA
- **Founded**: 1991 (Palo Alto, California)
- **Founders**: David Kelley, Bill Moggridge, Mike Nuttall

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Design Services / Innovation Consulting
- **Target customers**: Enterprise organizations, Fortune 500 companies, startups, and public sector entities across industries (healthcare, finance, technology, retail, education, government).
- **Mission or purpose statement**: To help all kinds of organizations imagine what’s next—and, more importantly, how to make it a reality. The company is built on the philosophy that creativity is the most powerful tool for solving complex challenges. [ideo.com](https://www.ideo.com/)

## Products & Services
- **Design Thinking & Innovation Consulting**: The core service. IDEO partners with clients to solve complex challenges through a human-centered, iterative process that integrates the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success.
- **New Business & Brand Creation**: Envisioning and launching new businesses, brands, and organizational capabilities from the ground up.
- **Experience & Service Design**: Designing the experiences and capabilities that bring new strategies and products to life.
- **Organizational Design**: Helping clients build design-oriented cultures and structures (e.g., work with Ford).
- **IDEO U**: An online learning platform offering courses on design thinking, creativity, and leadership.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly available (privately held).
- **Key Metric**: **Annual Revenue: ~$100M** (estimated by LinkedIn). **Employees: ~382** (as of mid-2026, +6.2% YoY). [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/ideo)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: IDEO has not disclosed major external funding rounds as a primary business. Notable partners/clients include **H&M** (sustainable supply chains), **Ford** (organizational design), and **Intercorp** (civic infrastructure). The company acquired **Datascope Analytics** in 2017.
- **Growth Signals**: Active hiring with 13 open positions (up 160% year-over-year as of mid-2026). The company operates in 38 countries with 9 offices across the US, UK, and China. [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/ideo)

## Competitive Advantages
- **Pioneer of Design Thinking**: IDEO is widely credited with popularizing "Design Thinking" in the business world, a methodology it has practiced for decades. This gives it a powerful brand and thought leadership position.
- **Uniquely Diverse Talent**: The company hires from a remarkably broad talent pool—architects, authors, AI experts, opera singers, NASA engineers, food scientists, and ER doctors—creating a creative alchemy that competitors struggle to replicate. [ideo.com](https://www.ideo.com/careers)
- **Human-Centered Moat**: Their deep, ethnographic understanding of human behavior and a proven, iterative process for innovation are difficult for other firms to copy.

## Strategic Focus
- **AI & Emerging Technology**: Actively exploring how design is evolving in the era of AI, applying its human-centered approach to emerging technologies.
- **Healthcare & Systems-Level Change**: Working on large-scale challenges, such as healthcare systems and civic infrastructure.
- **Global Expansion**: Maintaining and growing its presence across key markets (US, UK, China, India) to serve multinational clients.

## Why Work Here
- **Culture of Creativity**: The company explicitly values "curiosity" and "wide-eyed imagination." The work environment is designed to bring together people from wildly different backgrounds to solve problems.
- **DEIB Commitment**: IDEO is deeply committed to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, actively working to bring many different perspectives to the table. [ideo.com](https://www.ideo.com/careers)
- **High Autonomy & Impact**: Employees work directly with the world’s most imaginative leaders on a wide variety of projects, from designing a toothpaste tube to a supersonic jet.
- **Work Environment**: Hybrid/office model with major studios in San Francisco (HQ), Cambridge (MA), Chicago, Palo Alto, London, and Shanghai. [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/ideo)
- **Employee Rating**: 4.0/5.0 on LinkedIn, with strong marks for Culture (4.3) and Career (3.8), though Compensation (3.3) is rated lower. [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/ideo)

## Sources
1. [IDEO Official Site](https://www.ideo.com/)
2. [IDEO About Us](https://www.ideo.com/about)
3. [IDEO Careers Page](https://www.ideo.com/careers)
4. [IDEO LinkedIn Company Page](https://www.linkedin.com/company/ideo)
5. [IDEO Greenhouse Job Board](https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/ideo/jobs/7637138)

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