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Principal Designer

El Segundo, California, United States

Who We Are:

Neros is a defense technology company rebuilding America’s drone industrial base. We design and manufacture high-performance unmanned systems that are tested in combat, iterated at startup speed, and built at massive scale. Our team culture is fast, hands-on, and obsessed with closing the gap between design and deployment.

As drones transform the character of warfare, Neros is delivering the systems the West needs to compete on the modern battlefield and deter the adversaries of democracy. We’re hiring engineers, operators, and builders who want to move fast, take on extreme ownership, and get capability into the hands of warfighters in months, not years.

What you will be doing

We're hiring our first designer to lead the creation of compelling, high-impact visual assets across our brand and product ecosystem. This role sits at the intersection of marketing, industrial design, and storytelling — and will shape how the world sees and experiences Neros, both digitally and physically.

You’ll own the full visual identity of the company: designing marketing materials, web content, campaign assets, and product renders, while also supporting industrial design efforts that bring our physical systems and ethos to life. This is a high-leverage, foundational role for someone who thrives in a startup environment and wants to leave a creative mark on a company with national impact.

Responsibilities

  • Own and evolve the Neros visual brand across digital, print, and physical media
  • Design and maintain website assets, including landing pages, product visuals, and UI/UX elements in collaboration with engineering and marketing
  • Create high-fidelity renders and animations of physical systems for use in marketing, fundraising, and customer engagements
  • Develop marketing collateral such as pitch decks, one-pagers, brochures, and trade show assets
  • Contribute to the industrial design of our aerial systems — including CMF (color, material, finish), form factor considerations, and brand integration
  • Collaborate with engineering and product teams to visualize prototypes and future concepts
  • Build and manage a design toolkit, asset library, and guidelines to scale creative output across the company

Qualifications

  • 6+ years of experience in graphic, brand, or industrial design roles, ideally at a startup or design-driven hardware company
  • Strong portfolio demonstrating end-to-end ownership of design across digital and physical platforms
  • Deep understanding of brand systems and storytelling through visual design
  • Proficiency with industry-standard tools, including:
    • Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, After Effects)
    • Figma or equivalent for UI/UX and web design
    • 3D rendering and modeling tools such as KeyShot, Blender, Cinema 4D, Rhino, or SolidWorks Visualize
    • Familiarity with CAD tools (SolidWorks, Fusion 360, etc.) is a plus
  • Experience designing for hardware products — understanding how visual identity carries into physical systems
  • Exceptional attention to detail, visual polish, and creative thinking
  • Comfortable working independently and setting design direction in a fast-paced, unstructured environment
  • Bonus: motion design, photography, or video editing skills

Why Join Us

  • Be the founding designer at a fast-growing, mission-driven company
  • Work on products that matter for national security and industrial resilience
  • Collaborate with an elite team of engineers, operators, and builders
  • Influence the design culture from day one — your work will define how the world sees Neros

US Salary Range

$150,000 - $175,000 USD

The salary range for this role is an estimate based on a wide range of compensation factors, inclusive of base salary only. Actual salary may vary based on (but not limited to) work experience, education and/or training, critical skills, and/or business considerations. Highly competitive equity grants are considered part of Neros' total compensation package.

We’re an equal opportunity employer. We welcome all applicants without attention to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran or disability status.

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