Senior Industrial Design, Lead

Job description

The Creative org defines how WHOOP is felt in the world. We are responsible for the physical manifestations of the brand, from hardware, bands, and accessories to collaborations, retail environments, pop-ups, and in-store moments. We operate with high taste, deep craft, and exacting standards. This is a design team built on trust, candor, and a shared obsession with quality. We are empowered to initiate, to challenge, and to lead. Our mandate is simple and uncompromising: to deliver best-in-class design across every physical touchpoint and to make WHOOP unmistakable through clarity, restraint, and excellence.

We are looking for a Senior Industrial Design, Lead to help define the future of WHOOP hardware and wearable experiences. This role is for a designer who can move fluidly between vision and execution, shaping product strategy while obsessing over the details of form, fit, material, finish, comfort, manufacturing, and long-term user behavior.

As Senior Industrial Design, Lead, you will own and drive industrial design across next-generation WHOOP products, accessories, and wearable systems. You will lead concept development, translate insights into compelling physical experiences, and partner deeply with Product, Engineering, Research, CMF, Apparel, Manufacturing, Brand, and Marketing teams to bring world-class products to market.

This person will help define how WHOOP shows up on the body, in sport, in daily life, and in culture. The ideal candidate has deep experience designing wearable products or technically complex consumer hardware, a refined aesthetic point of view, strong ergonomic intuition, and the ability to lead cross-functional teams from early exploration through mass production.

RESPONSIBILITIES:
- Lead industrial design for future WHOOP hardware, bands, accessories, and wearable ecosystems from concept through production.

- Translate user, athlete, member, and market insights into design strategies, product architectures, and differentiated physical experiences.

- Create compelling design concepts through sketching, 3D modeling, prototyping, visualization, and storytelling.

- Drive ergonomic studies, wearability testing, fit analysis, and human factors exploration to ensure products perform across body types, activities, environments, and use cases.

- Partner closely with Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Sensors, Apparel, Product, and Manufacturing to balance design intent, technical feasibility, performance, comfort, durability, and cost.

- Lead CMF direction in collaboration with CMF and Brand partners, ensuring every material, finish, texture, and color decision reinforces the WHOOP design language.

- Build and evolve design systems for WHOOP hardware, accessories, and on-body experiences, creating consistency while enabling future innovation.

- Prototype rapidly across fidelity levels, from rough physical mockups to refined appearance models and functional wear-test samples.

- Guide design decisions through clear rationale, strong visual communication, and a deep understanding of member needs.

- Mentor industrial designers and contribute to a high-performance creative culture rooted in craft, rigor, curiosity, and accountability.

- Present design work to senior leadership, clearly articulating the strategic, experiential, technical, and business rationale behind key decisions.

- Partner with external vendors, model shops, factories, and development partners to preserve design intent through tooling, validation, and production.

- Stay ahead of trends in wearables, health technology, performance apparel, fashion, materials, manufacturing, and culture.

QUALIFICATIONS:

- 8+ years of industrial design experience, with significant experience in consumer electronics, wearables, health technology, performance products, footwear, apparel, or technically complex consumer goods.

- A portfolio that demonstrates exceptional taste, concept development, design process, problem solving, prototyping, and production execution.

- Proven experience bringing products from early concept through manufacturing and launch.

- Deep understanding of ergonomics, body-worn products, soft goods, hard goods, materials, CMF, manufacturing processes, and design for scale.

- Strong 2D and 3D design skills, including sketching, CAD, rendering, visualization, and physical prototyping.

- Ability to lead ambiguous, future-facing design programs while also managing the details required to ship excellent products.

- Experience collaborating with engineering and manufacturing teams on technically constrained products.

- Strong storytelling and presentation skills, with the ability to influence executive stakeholders and cross-functional partners.

- A refined aesthetic point of view and a high bar for proportion, detail, materiality, usability, and emotional resonance.

- A collaborative, low-ego leadership style with the ability to mentor designers and elevate the work of a broader team.

- Passion for health, fitness, sport, human performance, design innovation, and the future of wearable technology.