COROFLOT REPOST > hiring at the Sound United Design Center

Hey everyone, some of you may be aware I accepted a new position at a company called DEI Holdings, which owns a number of consumer electronics brands. As part of my new role, I’m building out and staffing a global design center near San Diego that works on brand positioning, branding, packaging, product design, web presence and mobile apps for all of the brands. The team will be a huge part of taking multiple brands to the next level and will be designing a wide range of product.

A little bit about what we are building with the Design Center:
http://www.cepro.com/article/dei_holdings_global_design_center_focuses_on_audio/

The DEI Global Design center is located in Vista, CA, about half way between LA and San Diego, not too far from the Pacific Ocean. Our mission is to design iconic industry leading products and experiences that are culturally relevant and emotionally resonant for all DEI Holdings brands. The design center is responsible for ensuring all design user touch-points of DEI brands embody the evolving multi-brand strategic vision of DEI Holdings. We employ observational ethnographic research, cultural and market trend research, strategic brand positioning, industrial design, visual design, interaction design, usability testing and design engineering where needed to achieve our goal of designing the most iconic, memorable, and inspiring products and experiences in our industry. We are looking for the best talent in the world who would like to help us continue to make this vision a reality, work hard, and have fun.

About DEI Holdings
Headquartered in Southern California, DEI Holdings, Inc. is the parent company of some of the most respected brands in the consumer electronics industry. DEI Holdings is a leading designer and marketer in North America of premium home theater loudspeakers and personal audio products (sold under the Polk Audio®, Definitive Technology® and Boom® brand names), and consumer-branded vehicle security and remote start systems (sold under Viper®, Clifford®, Python®, Autostart®, and other brand names). DEI Holdings is also a supplier of mobile audio sold principally under the Polk Audio® brand name. DEI Holdings markets its broad portfolio of products through many channels including leading national retailers and specialty chains throughout North America and around the world. Founded in 1982, the company has operations in California, Maryland, Canada, Europe and Asia. For further information, visit > http://www.deiholdings.com> .

The first discipline I am building out is Industrial design and we just posted three positions on coroflot:

Industrial Designer:

Design Engineer (ME background or an ID’er with a strong understanding of manufacturing and a bit of a CAD rockstar)

Industrial Design Intern:

Feel free to ask any general questions on here. Please apply through the link, not to me directly. Thanks!

Michael

Awww 3-4 years exp. takes me out of the picture. Good luck on the building of your team, I know from past history that it can be a fun and daunting experience.

Chevis

So no more Frog leaping for you?

It was a tough decision to leave frog. I love it there, loved my work, and made a lot of close friends.

The opportunity to help shape a series of brands, product portfolios, and a team in parallel is a rare one. It seemed tailored to the types of passions and skills I have. I see this as a very long term mission for myself, 10 years + .

Alright! Glad you found a new gig you really like and you feel like you are part of something big.
Good luck, Michael. Sounds great.

WOW, enough of the self promotion already – I think you have chided many others for the same thing.

I don’t think this qualifies as self-promotion.
Michael, perhaps more-so than any other poster, has been very generous with his contributions to this site over the years and as a result many of us have an interest in seeing how his professional career develops and appreciate being “included” via way of updates.

The fact that he is additionally offering employment opportunities to Core77 readers (that are all listed on Coroflot) makes it even more appropriate - and less about self-promotion.

Yo - sounds like a great opportunity.
cheers. Rob

Yo,

do you think you could give us more specific examples of what you’re looking for in a designer? A more form-based guy who’s into the sketching and CAD end? A more user-centric designer? A combination of the two? What about how we present the portfolio? Would you prefer that it is short, sweet and to the point (less than 15 pages) or do you want a full process shown?

Thanks

Yo,

Good luck in your new position and hiring your team. Always a fun challenge.

Jeff

Side note to everyone else, technically, there is another unmentioned job opening here… :smiley:

Good observation Jeff, that is correct :wink:

JLW, certainly what I would call a hot hand is required, as is a deep interest in creating culturally relevant and emotionally relevant products that link to deeper brand ethics that will play out over generations of product. Music is the compression of human emotion into a sound wave, the products we are working on can be ver personal and intimate and they will reflect that. I’ll need to see that ability. Additionally, a lot of the products are utilizing or connecting to emergent technologies so the team will be working on how to make that experience as pleasurable as possible.

Wow.

Cool jobs. I would kick ass at the design engineer one, being a CAD rockstar and a regular rockstar too. Unfortunately I live in Australia and have 2 1/2 years post grad experience.

Oh well. Good luck to everyone who applies.

Let the battle begin!

@Yo

Any interest in recent grads for the intern spot? Or do they have to apply for the full time spot?

Congrats btw!

I’d be open to considering a recent grad for either but I prefer to hire a recent grad full time and save the internship for a student

Congratulations on the new position Michael, it sounds right up your alley! I look forward to seeing what you do and the team you build, seems like an amazing opportunity.

best
r*

Congrats Michael on the new role. the jobs sound great and a great opportunity for a young designer to learn quite a bit from being part of a growing team. If you need any managers let me know. :wink:

J

Hey Yo,

Is there any possibility of a Design Engineer Intern position opening up in the future? I’ve got almost as much design experience as time in school, but still a year off of the ME degree…

Also, if you’re Canadian, is that enough to fulfill the “Candidate must be qualified to work in the US already.”? Luckily we’re the exception to most immigration laws and it wasn’t too hard last time I came down to work.

Finally, what do you look for in an ME portfolio? So far I’ve tried to build it along the lines of a traditional ID portfolio: sketches, rendering, etc. to show design ability and let the ME degree (or in my case my GPA in ME) speak for itself, assuming nobody wants to see my FEA and surface analysis or lines of equations.

Sorry if it sounds like I’m trying to fit the job to me, I’m just kicking myself for not being born a few years earlier and in the US :stuck_out_tongue:

“Candidate must be qualified to work in the US already.” means you’ll need a TN-1, H1-B status or Permanent Resident card. Based on your posting it sounds like you had a TN-1. If you have any of the three above you’d definitely qualified to work in the US.

I had a J-1 actually since it was an internship, but for both the J-1 and the TN-1 you need an offer of employment before you can apply for the visa. Most US jobs I have applied to have some form of that disclaimer but I usually apply anyway and explain the exact process and situation if I hear back. You never know about the ones you don’t hear from though…

I’ve had all three (TN/H1/PR). The most straight fwd one is TN-1 status. Since they’ve extended the length of the TN1 to 3yrs it makes it more attractive compared to H1B and doesn’t have the 7yr cap associated w/ the latter. Assuming you’re graduating from Carleton/UofO you’ll have a Degree and job offer letter you’ll have no problems since you’re on the Trade Nafta list.

We are getting off topic, but i wanted to add that you can only apply for permanent residence with a h1B thus the reason to have that over a TN.