This is a working design leadership role. You will design every week. You will also lead: clients, procurement, contractors on design matters, and in time a growing design team. We are not hiring someone to manage designers from a distance, and we are not hiring a production resource. We are hiring the person who owns design across the studio, rolls up their sleeves, from concept sketch to as-built, and who builds the department around the way they, and we, work. You report directly to the Managing Director and on a project basis to the Projects Director.
The main responsibilities for this role include:
- Lead and personally produce design across concept, schematic, detail, and construction documentation for interior fit-out and workplace projects
- Own the client design relationship from brief to handover: present, listen, defend the design where it should be defended, and adapt it where the client is right
- Design to budget. Translate briefs into commercially viable schemes and value-engineer without losing the idea
- Manage FF&E and materials procurement: specification, sourcing, supplier negotiation, samples, and lead times
- Direct contractors and subcontractors on design intent: review shop drawings, resolve site queries, and protect design quality through construction
- Prepare design packages for landlord and authority approvals in Dubai, and specify materials within sustainability frameworks including LEED requirements
- Build the systems the studio runs on: design standards, material libraries, templates, and quality review processes
- Hire, mentor, and develop designers as the studio grows
Knowledge, Qualifications and Skills required:
Essential:
10+ years in interior design and fit-out, with substantial UAE experience and a portfolio of built work. Delivered projects, not concepts
- Experience in a design and build or otherwise commercially accountable environment, where your design decisions carried cost consequences you owned
- Direct client-facing experience at decision-maker level
- Hands-on procurement experience: you have specified, sourced, negotiated, and chased materials yourself
- Fluency across the core design toolset: AutoCAD, SketchUp, 3ds Max and/or Revit, and Adobe Creative Suite, with working BOQ literacy.
- The ability to move efficiently from concept through technical documentation, procurement, and delivery.
- Familiarity with Dubai authority and landlord approval processes
- Transparency by default. When a problem appears on a project, you raise it early and bring options
Desirable:
- Experience with Enscape, V-Ray, or similar visualization tools
