Exterior Design Lead

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Exterior Design · Leadership
Exterior Design Lead
In-house position
Fully remote
Leadership role
SketchUp
You mentor, guide, and develop the Exterior Design Team while holding the quality and consistency of the work. This is an in-house role, not a seasonal contract — and the distinction that matters most: we're not looking for our strongest exterior designer, we're looking for someone who genuinely knows how to lead designers.
Read this part first
Every other opening on this site is a 3-month seasonal contract.
This one isn't.
It's an in-house position from the start, because you can't build a design team on a three-month horizon.
The other thing worth saying plainly: plenty of excellent designers are not good leads, and we'd rather be honest about which one we're hiring for. You need the design background — without it you can't review exterior work credibly. But the part of this job that decides whether it works is whether you can develop other designers, give feedback they can act on, and hold a standard without becoming a bottleneck.
What you'll be responsible for
Mentoring, guiding, and developing the Exterior Design Team
— the core of the job, not a side responsibility.
Reviewing work and giving clear, actionable design direction.
Not "make it better" — specific enough that a designer knows what to change and why.
Maintaining standards and consistency across projects
, so quality holds as volume climbs.
Identifying problems early and helping designers work through them
, rather than catching them at client review.
Bringing a strong understanding of exterior design, spatial planning, functionality, and guest experience to every review.
Collaborating closely with the Creative Lead, Interior Lead, and Managers
so exteriors and interiors read as one property.
Staying close enough to the work to keep your own judgment sharp — this isn't a role that stops designing entirely.
What we're looking for
Proven experience leading and mentoring designers.
This is the requirement we're least flexible on.
The ability to review work and give clear, actionable design direction, in writing and on calls.
A strong understanding of exterior design, spatial planning, functionality, and guest experience.
The instinct to spot a problem early — a site condition, a concept fighting the budget, a designer stuck and not saying so.
Strong SketchUp and design knowledge.
You need to be able to open the file and see what's wrong.
Fluent English and confidence communicating across teams
, including with leads and managers outside your own.
Hospitality, resort, or short-term rental experience is a real advantage.
On job titles:
previous experience with the exact title “Exterior Design Lead” is not required. What matters is real experience managing or mentoring people. If you've led a design pod, run crits, or brought junior designers up to standard — whatever it was called — that counts.
The logistics
In-house position
, not a seasonal contract.
Fully remote
, with availability aligned to U.S. Central Time. Overlap matters more in this role than any other, since the team depends on your reviews.
Fluent English required.
Spanish is a plus — a large part of our Design Team is based in Latin America, and you'd be leading a good portion of it.
Stable internet and a computer that comfortably runs SketchUp on large models.
See what applies to every role at Funkit
— remote working, time zone, language, and how we collaborate.
Apply
One form covers every role at Funkit. It doesn't have a separate option for this position yet, so it needs one extra step from you.
On the form, select:
Remote Positions
→
Exterior Designer
Status
→
Full-Time
Why are you interested in working at Funkit?
→ start your answer with
“Applying for Exterior Design Lead”
so we route it correctly, and tell us about a designer you've developed.
Have these ready before you start:
your resume as a PDF, your portfolio (file or link) showing exterior projects you led and your SketchUp work, and a 1–2 minute video introduction. The form lists the five questions to answer in the video.
Referred by someone at Funkit?
Enter their full name in the referral question on the form. If you're hired, their referral goes into our
$100 prize draw
— and it only counts if their name is on your application.
Apply for Exterior Design Lead
Want to design rather than lead? Our seasonal
Exterior Designer
role is filled for now — the page explains the work, and we reopen it as new projects come in.  ·
What happens after you apply

Applies to every role at Funkit (https://careers.funkit.co/):
Fully remote. Open to creative talent anywhere in the world!!
Remote from wherever you are, on a schedule that overlaps U.S. Central Time.