Senior Design Manager

POP MART is a global pop culture and entertainment company that develops and operates intellectual properties, products, services, and entertainment experiences. The Senior Design Manager supports themed entertainment and experiential projects by coordinating internal creative teams, external partners, vendors, and multidisciplinary design resources from concept through completion.

Responsibilities:

• Serve as the primary day-to-day coordination point between internal creative teams and external design, production, technical, fabrication, and specialty vendors
• Help organize and facilitate the development of projects from early creative concept through design development, production, fabrication, installation, and completion
• Coordinate the flow of information, drawings, presentations, reference materials, creative direction, technical requirements, and project decisions between internal teams and outside partners
• Ensure designers, artists, consultants, contractors, and other project resources have the information and materials necessary to perform their work effectively
• Identify missing information, coordination needs, or potential design conflicts and work with project leadership and appropriate disciplines to resolve them
• Help maintain consistency and continuity as projects move between creative development, technical development, production, and implementation
• Participate in creative development meetings, workshops, reviews, and design discussions
• Develop a strong understanding of the creative intent behind each project and help translate that intent into clear direction and actionable requirements for project teams and external partners
• Support creative and project leadership in communicating creative priorities, design objectives, guest experience goals, and project requirements to team and external partners. Help ensure outside partners understand and accurately respond to the project's established creative vision
• Contribute observations and ideas during creative development that continues to grow and improve processes and outcomes
• Assist project leadership in developing scopes of work for external consultants, designers, artists, technical specialists, fabricators, and other project partners
• Help define anticipated deliverables, responsibilities, design phases, coordination requirements, review points, and required project information
• Participate in kickoff meetings with vendors and outside partners to communicate project objectives, expectations, deliverables, and creative requirements
• Serve as one of the primary day-to-day contacts for assigned vendors during project development, helping bridge disciplines across multiple time zones
• Coordinate vendor questions, design submissions, reviews, feedback, and required decisions with appropriate internal team members
• Help confirm that vendor deliverables align with the established scope, design intent, and project requirements
• Coordinate with procurement and project leadership as necessary while leaving contract negotiations, commercial terms, purchasing, and vendor financial management to the appropriate procurement and business teams
• Maintain and organize design documentation throughout the project lifecycle
• Track design packages and submissions from internal and external teams
• Review and understand drawings, renderings, presentations, specifications, design packages, and other project documentation
• Mark up design documents and drawings as necessary to communicate comments, coordination issues, or creative feedback
• Help organize formal design reviews and ensure comments and decisions are documented and communicated to the appropriate parties
• Maintain awareness of design changes and help communicate their implications across relevant project disciplines
• Helping to facilitate functions of projects across the Los Angeles and Beijing offices
• Participating in meetings across international time zones when necessary
• Helping facilitate clear communication between creative, design, business, and production teams operating in different regions
• Supporting collaboration with international consultants, vendors, project partners, and development teams
• Participating in occasional project-related travel, including approximately one to two trips to Beijing annually and other project or vendor travel as required

Requirements:

• Approximately 5 to 10 years of relevant professional experience in themed entertainment, experiential design, entertainment production, architecture, design management, or a related field
• Demonstrated experience coordinating multidisciplinary creative or design projects
• Experience working with external consultants, vendors, fabricators, artists, technical teams, or production partners
• Strong understanding of the general design and development process, from early concept through documentation, production, installation, and completion
• Ability to understand and interpret design drawings, presentations, specifications, markups, and other project documentation
• Familiarity with the roles played by common design and production software and tools, even when not personally responsible for producing work within those platforms
• Ability to review and mark up drawings and design documentation
• Excellent organizational and communication skills
• Ability to manage multiple workstreams, deliverables, stakeholders, and priorities simultaneously
• Strong attention to detail while maintaining an understanding of overall project goals and creative intent
• Ability to communicate effectively with both highly creative and highly technical team members
• Comfort working in an evolving organization where processes, project types, and responsibilities may continue to develop
• Ability to work effectively in a remote and internationally distributed team environment
• Ability to work independently while maintaining close communication with project and creative leadership
• Previous experience in theme parks, themed entertainment, location-based entertainment, immersive experiences, or attractions development
• Experience coordinating multiple outside design or production vendors simultaneously
• Experience working with international or multicultural project teams
• Experience working with teams or partners in China
• Mandarin language capability is helpful but not required