Senior Lighting Designer

Dark Light Design (DLD), an award-winning architectural lighting design practice, is looking for an experienced Senior Lighting Designer to join our team.

We are looking for someone who loves design, understands how to lead projects and people, and wants to have a meaningful voice in the work and future of a growing independent design practice.

Our preference is for this position to be based in our Seattle office, although candidates in St. Louis or Atlanta are also encouraged to apply. For an exceptional candidate who is a strong fit for our team and this role, we would consider a remote position.

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The Role

As a Senior Lighting Designer at DLD, you will help guide the design direction and successful delivery of multiple projects while serving as a trusted resource for our clients and our team.

This is a role for an experienced designer who can move comfortably between big-picture thinking and the details required to make great design happen. You should be able to develop a strong concept, understand how it supports architecture, materiality, experience, and project narrative, and then lead a team in carrying that idea successfully through documentation and construction.

You will have the opportunity to work across a broad range of project types and scales, from intimate hospitality and workplace environments to airports, cultural projects, public spaces, and city-scale infrastructure.

Your responsibilities will include:

• Guiding overall lighting design direction across multiple projects and developing layered, thoughtful lighting solutions that respond to architecture, materiality, user experience, and project goals

• Developing concepts and translating them into cohesive, high-level design solutions from early design through construction

• Leading client and consultant meetings, presenting design ideas persuasively, and building long-term client relationships

• Directing project teams and helping establish clear priorities, expectations, and design standards

• Overseeing technical solutions, detailing, documentation, calculations, controls coordination, and constructability

• Providing QA/QC and design review for the work of other team members

• Managing projects with an understanding of scope, schedule, fee, staffing, and financial performance

• Anticipating project challenges and proactively developing solutions

• Mentoring designers and project managers, providing constructive feedback, and helping others develop their own strengths

• Contributing to proposals, project pursuits, firm initiatives, standards, and process improvements

• Helping strengthen DLD's presence in the design community through client relationships, industry involvement, speaking, writing, mentorship, or other areas that align with your interests and strengths

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About You

You are an accomplished lighting designer with both design vision and practical judgment. You understand light as a design medium and know how to use it to shape space, reveal materials, create hierarchy, support human experience, and reinforce a larger architectural idea.

You are equally comfortable sketching through an early concept, reviewing a Revit model, working through a difficult technical detail, presenting to a client, or helping a less experienced designer find a better solution.

You communicate clearly and confidently, but you also listen. You understand that the strongest projects come from collaboration rather than ego, and you know how to build trust with clients, architects, interior designers, landscape architects, engineers, contractors, manufacturers, and your own project team.

You take ownership of your work, follow through on commitments, and understand that excellent design and excellent project delivery go hand in hand.

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Skills & Qualifications

Required:

• Minimum 6 years of professional lighting design experience

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Architecture, Interior Design, Architectural Engineering, Theatrical Lighting, Lighting Design, or a related design discipline

• Strong architectural lighting design portfolio demonstrating conceptual thinking and successfully realized work

• Proficiency in Revit

• Proficiency in Adobe Creative Suite

• Proficiency in Microsoft Office

• Strong understanding of lighting design fundamentals, lighting calculations, controls, codes, construction documentation, and detailing

• Ability to lead projects and collaborate effectively with multidisciplinary design teams

• Excellent verbal, written, visual, and presentation communication skills

• Ability to manage multiple projects, priorities, schedules, and responsibilities effectively

A plus:

• IALD Professional membership

• CLD certification

• Experience mentoring and developing other designers

• Experience with business development, proposals, client development, speaking, writing, or other forms of industry engagemen

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About Dark Light Design

At DLD, we believe great lighting design starts with understanding what a project is trying to become. We use light to shape experience, reinforce architecture, reveal materiality, support people, and create places that feel memorable and intentional.

Our work spans a wide range of project types, including transportation, civic and public realm, hospitality, workplace, cultural, healthcare, education, and infrastructure projects. That diversity keeps our work interesting and gives our designers opportunities to continually learn, stretch, and develop.

We are a small, independent design practice, which means senior team members have a real opportunity to influence our projects, our culture, and the direction of the firm. We value curiosity, humility, ingenuity, accountability, empathy, and the understanding that great design is a collaborative effort.

We also believe career growth does not need to follow a single predetermined path. We want people to build on their strengths, develop new ones, mentor and learn from others, and find the areas of practice where they can make the greatest contribution.

For someone interested in taking their career beyond senior project and design leadership, this position can also offer a potential path toward firm ownership. Ownership is not an expectation or requirement, but we are interested in meeting people who may ultimately want to help shape and lead the next chapter of DLD.

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What We Offer

• Competitive salary and benefits

• Flexible hybrid work environment

• A collaborative, creative studio culture

• Diverse and challenging projects across the country

• Meaningful opportunities for mentorship and professional development

• The opportunity to influence design, practice, and firm initiatives

• Support for professional and industry involvement

• Potential long-term path to ownership for interested and qualified candidates

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Applicants must be authorized to work legally in the U.S.

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To Apply

Please send a cover letter, resume, and portfolio (PDF or link) to careers@darklight-design.com.

We would especially like to hear not only about the projects you have worked on, but what kind of lighting designer and leader you want to become next.