Computational Designer

over 2 years ago
Full time role
New York, NY, US... more
New York, NY, US... more

Company

Sidewalk Labs aims to combine forward-thinking urban design and cutting-edge technology to radically improve urban life. We’ve proposed a comprehensive plan ...

View Company Profile

Job Description

Who are we?

Sidewalk Labs is an urban innovation company that tackles cities' greatest challenges. We create products and solutions, invest in new companies, and help developers build more sustainable, innovative, and equitable places around the world. Our ambitious vision requires us to push ourselves beyond conventional thinking, and we work hard in pursuit of our mission. Our cross-disciplinary team consists of experts from real estate, urban planning, government, finance, technology, and engineering, among other backgrounds.

Our urban innovations include Delve (a generative design product that empowers real estate teams to design better, faster, with less risk), Mesa (an easy-install kit for commercial buildings that cuts energy costs, improves tenant comfort, and simplifies building operations), Pebble (a low-cost vehicle sensor to help manage parking and curb space), and Affordable Electrification (a new way to manage home energy use to meet a customer’s monthly budget). We're also developing an offsite construction company that can deliver high-quality mass timber buildings for more sustainable living and working.

With the potential to radically improve quality of life in cities for all, our work is both exciting and complex. We are working to achieve something unprecedented — help us build it!

What is the role?

You will be a key member of Sidewalk’s Delve team, helping build an AI driven district planning product for development teams. Our team is committed to radically improving the quality of urban life. You will be a computational designer contributing to core product development on the team, and will collaborate closely with our engineering and design team to build new features and functionality that solves user needs. You will be in charge of researching, defining, new features that drive the Delve 3D model (zoning rules, building structures, interior layouts, etc) as well as building the metrics that drive the Delve 3D model (financials, walkability, etc).

You are comfortable quickly prototyping solutions in Python notebooks or Rhino/ Grasshopper, and can speak with discipline experts to translate their knowledge into codified rules for Delve. You are comfortable coordinating across the team: with product managers, software engineers, and designers.

Key aspects of the role include:

  • Customer mindset
  • Translation of client needs into computational scripts using Grasshopper/Python, and finding/researching creative solutions using the existing product and other plugins. An ability to identify where these scripts must become part of the core product and work closely with Product and Engineering to define and deliver them.
  • Core technical design
  • Creation of design documents for core pipeline development, with emphasis on clear communication of user story and the outline of a technical approach in response. Emphasis is on being able to lean on domain knowledge, user research and code prototypes, while collaborating successfully with software engineering to productionize features.
  • Computational designKnowledge of and ability to create and apply parametric design models, BIM, GIS, domain-specific simulations (daylight/sunlight, transit, pedestrian behavior) and generative design processes.
  • Data analysisAbility to parse, analyze, and recommend actions based on large spatial data sets in a machine learning setting.
  • Urban/Architectural designAbility to understand, design and communicate comprehensive strategies for designing buildings, planning neighborhoods, with attention to factors such as building code, land-use, structure, building processes, and transit strategies.

This is a full time position.

What You Will Achieve

Within the first month, you understand our product and tools in and out based on discussion with product, design and engineering. You can confidently customize and apply the tool to new sites and projects, and are fully onboarded into our version control and software development practices.

At the end of month three, you will have pushed our product forward with working prototypes and implemented features. You have added code to generate more sophisticated design options and evaluations that can meet the demands and constraints of real-world projects.

Beyond the first few months, you will have helped lead research efforts to identify at least one new technological opportunity for the product, in partnership with engineering, design and product management.

What We Expect

Expertise in computational and urban design

  • You have 3+ years of experience applying computational design methods to architecture, urban design, planning and/or real estate development.
  • You have comfort working across and between GIS, design software (Rhino, Grasshopper) and code (Python) — and experience developing custom design tools and workflows.
  • You have experience applying statistics, data science, machine learning, simulation or modeling to problems of design and the built environment.
  • You have a degree in Urban Design, Architecture, Urban Planning, Computational Design, Computer Science or have equivalent professional experience.

Bias towards action

  • You love to dive into spatial design problems, and care about everything from critical details to the big-picture questions. You enjoy the challenge of iterative, evolving projects.
  • Be an advocate for design! As a computational designer on the team, you’ll need to identify critical areas for improvement, opportunities for new features in a broader market of software solutions, and build prototypes to prove your point.

Solve problems, together

  • You are a proven collaborator and communicator; you know how to listen to and work well with experts from the same and other disciplines.
  • You can come up with novel solutions that solve the problems of both urbanists and technologists.
  • You are committed to creating more equitable and inclusive outcomes both in the workplace and in the work you do.
  • You know how to admit what you don’t know, and how to ask the right people on the team for help.
  • You thrive working in complex environments with many internal and external stakeholders.

Passionate about cities

  • Demonstrated curiosity for the urban environment and care deeply about improving the lives of people in cities.
  • You live and breathe design and computation, but you believe that urban environments are the complex result of many other processes and disciplines.

Bonus points

  • Experience working on a digital product team, working with engineers, designers, and sales teams.
  • Experience with agile software development

We are very excited to hear from you.

Sidewalk Labs is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We actively seek applicants from underrepresented communities. Even if you are not 100% sure you are right for the role, please apply and we will be happy to consider your application. All employment is based on merit and business need, and we respond to each application we receive.

We are very excited to hear from you.

Sidewalk Labs is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We actively seek applicants from underrepresented communities. Even if you are not 100% sure you are right for the role, please apply and we will be happy to consider your application. All employment is based on merit and business need, and we respond to each application we receive.

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