Junior Designer

About the role

This opportunity is with Designworks, the BMW Group’s design innovation studio, based in Santa Monica, California. The studio has spent 25 years helping shape future-focused ideas for BMW Group and other ambitious organizations across industries. The team works at the intersection of design, technology, and innovation, with a strong emphasis on pushing ideas into tangible, forward-looking solutions. The role is best suited to an independent creative thinker who enjoys working with fresh concepts, building networks, and contributing energy to a studio focused on future-shaping design.

What you will do

• Contribute to a broad mix of project deliverables for clients across multiple industries, helping raise the creative quality and innovation level of the studio’s output.
• Lead design work from early research and ideation through concept development, execution, and coordination with development partners and vendors.
• Use design expertise to handle moderately complex to highly complex assignments, bringing analysis and creative problem-solving to the work.
• Help foster an experimental mindset by introducing new processes, emerging technologies, and progressive ways of working that strengthen studio output.
• Balance established design principles with new tools and methods, finding ways to blend tradition with innovation.
• Support the creation of internal workflows and toolchains that improve scalability and efficiency as the studio expands across regions, sectors, and disciplines.
• Create and evolve ideas for products, interfaces, and brand experiences, weighing aesthetics, usability, sustainability, materials, production methods, and client needs.
• Turn research insights and sketches into polished design directions and presentations while working closely with cross-functional teams.
• Assist with strategic services such as contextual research, design strategy, and design identity, while managing hours and maintaining system documentation such as Workfront.

What we are looking for

• A bachelor’s degree in industrial design, transportation design, automotive design, or a comparably ambitious creative field.
• 1 to 2 years of professional design experience, or an equivalent background, supported by a portfolio that shows range, experimentation, and a willingness to take creative risks.
• Strong technical ability in 2D and 3D tools such as Alias, Maya, Blender, Cinema 4D, Keyshot, and Adobe Creative Suite, along with the flexibility to learn new tools quickly.
• Experience using Figma and cloud-based collaboration tools in modern, connected design workflows.
• Strong understanding of form, proportion, and materiality, with the ability to challenge conventions and develop new visual directions.
• A proactive and curious approach to design, with a habit of finding new ways to think, make, and solve problems.
• Clear communication skills, both verbal and visual, with the confidence to explain and defend creative ideas.
• A self-directed learner who follows developments in design technology, fabrication, and culture and brings those learnings into the studio.
• Strong aesthetic sensitivity and the ability to anticipate rather than simply follow trends.
• Comfort with AI-assisted design methods and the ability to use generative tools as part of everyday creative work.

Benefits and compensation

• Medical, dental, and vision coverage
• 401(k) plan with company match plus a retirement income account
• Employee vehicle program
• Eligibility for a bonus
• Paid parental leave
• Generous paid time off and company holidays
• Optional benefits that can be chosen based on individual needs
• Expected annual salary range: $68,151 to $88,195, with the final offer based on education, skills, experience, and location
• Relocation support is not available for this position
• This role requires regular in-office attendance as part of a hybrid working arrangement

Additional information

The company says it values responsibility, appreciation, transparency, trust, and openness, and uses those principles to guide how it works internally and with others. BMW Group in the United States does not offer immigration sponsorship or employer support for immigration-related employment benefits for this role. Candidates must already be legally authorized to work in the United States on a full-time basis, now and in the future, without needing sponsorship. This includes situations involving H-1B, O-1, E-3, H-1B1, TN, F-1 OPT, F-1 STEM OPT, or F-1 CPT work authorization. The employer also states that it is an equal opportunity employer and considers qualified candidates without regard to age, race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or veteran status.