Interior Design Lead, Healthcare Practice

NBBJ is an award-winning design firm recognized as a TIME100 Most Influential Company, a Fast Company Most Innovative Architecture Firm and a two-time 2025 AIA National Honor Award recipient. These recognitions reflect our purpose-driven approach that, fueled by ideas and a culture of collaboration, creates healthy buildings, strong communities and a resilient environment. That’s where you come in. With leading clients, diverse colleagues and offices in creative capitals around the globe, a career at NBBJ will inspire you to be extraordinary. You can learn more about our firm, see what it’s like to work here and explore recent projects and ideas at NBBJ.com. Join us to make an impact today!

The role at a glance:

NBBJ New York is seeking a passionate Interior Design Lead to join our Healthcare Practice. The Design Lead would have the opportunity to work on significant projects for major regional healthcare systems. It is crucial that this person has experience with local healthcare work and is visible in the New York City healthcare market. At times, our designers also lend their talents to health sciences, corporate, civic, and/or commercial projects as strategic opportunities arise for meaningful cross-market partnerships. The individual would be responsible for pursuing, developing, managing, and executing the design of projects.

This is an opportunity to join a fully integrated award-winning design practice where Interior Designers collaboratively work with Architects, Medical and Lab Planners, BIM Integration Leaders, and Urban Planners from programming and concept through construction. In addition to providing design leadership on projects, this individual will mentor and help grow junior interior design talent. The successful candidate is a team- and practice-builder with drive to contribute to our thriving practice. The role requires the successful candidate to be actively involved in the development of the work while balancing an overall, high-level understanding of multiple projects. The skill and ability to both lead and integrate into a diverse team of designers would serve the candidate well in our highly collaborative environment.

In your new role, you will:

• Design Excellence– Design Leaders are champions of design excellence across the firm, leading our practice in setting new standards for innovation, performance, social and environmental impact.
• Design Leadership and Experience – Exhibit significant experience in leading design process for multiple scales and complexities of projects, from very large buildings to small scale renovations, from design concept through documentation and CA; working as solo designer or directing a team to develop an integrated and comprehensive design narrative.
• Knowledge of Healthcare Environments – demonstrate a deep expertise and passion for designing healing spaces for patients and their families and effective work environments for healthcare professionals.
• Collaborative Mindset - Design Leaders should excel in cross-disciplinary collaboration with architects, planners, lighting and graphic designers. This extends to collaboration with other firm-wide practice leaders in developing and pursuing common strategies.
• Mentoring – Design Leaders foster and develop design talent, leading with enthusiasm and setting standards for professional and creative rigor.
• Communication Skills - A critical element of this role is to describe design solutions and ideas in a clear and rigorous narrative with graphics that generate understanding, empathy, and engagement from the client and design team.
• Research Leadership - Interior Design Leaders at NBBJ plan and lead research to discover new and innovative ways to approach and give meaning to the design challenges. They must have the ability to help the team read between the lines and discover latent needs.
• Analysis and Synthesis – Research insights must be translated into a useful foundation for design. Design Leaders should be able to lead by helping to distill key insights and linking them together in a design framework.
• Passion for Performance Metrics and Human Experience - The Design Leader must drive design toward measurable outcomes, a successful bottom line, and impactful contributions to client, community, and environmental goals.
• Design Agility - This role requires comfort in a range of building types and the ability to apply insights from one building type to another.
• Empathy and Compassion - We look for those who have a natural skill to engage with people at a deep level and are passionate about representing a human and humane perspective.

What you will need to succeed:

• Interior Design or Architecture degree from an accredited program (Master’s or Bachelor’s)
• Minimum of 15 years of professional experience in Interior Design and/or Interior Architecture 
• Significant previous experience working on complex healthcare projects in all phases of design 
• Architectural or interior design professional licensure a plus
• LEED accreditation or within 18 months of hire
• Strong marketing, interpersonal and leadership skills
• Experience leading teams and directing design on multiple projects concurrently
• Experience in research, selection and specification of materials and finishes
• Ability and willingness to travel domestically and internationally
• Experience with furniture selection and specification a plus
• Basic working knowledge of Revit, as well as Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign. Sketchup, Rhino and/or 3DS Max experience a plus

The annual base pay range for this role is anticipated to be between $130,000 and $160,000. Actual compensation for successful candidates will be carefully determined based on a number of factors, including their skills, qualifications and experience.

Why choose NBBJ?

We believe that all NBBJ employees should love their work. This means not only loving what you do but having pride in your workplace. We strive to be that irresistible place to work by enhancing your employee experience with customized programs and comprehensive benefits. In addition to 100% covered employee healthcare costs and 401k contributions, we offer unique professional development opportunities, volunteer opportunities and access to leading technology and resources to further help you love your work and advance your career.

• NBBJ has been named three times by Fast Company as one of the most innovative architecture firms.
• Founded in 1943, our first office opened over 75 years ago in Seattle, Washington. We now have over 10 office locations around the globe.
• We are a transdisciplinary, cross-practice focused firm with a deep portfolio of Civic & Cultural, Commercial, Corporate, Healthcare, Higher Education, Science and Technology, Sports, and Urban Environment projects. We also have several areas of service expertise including: Architecture, Environmental Graphic Design, Interior Design, Lighting Design, Workplace Consulting and more.
• In the past decade, NBBJ has received more than 300 awards from leading global, national and regional award programs across the business, real estate and design communities.
• We work with 5 of the top global high-tech companies, 14 of the U.S. News and World Report Top Hospitals, and 4 of the top 10 highest-ranked learning institutions.
• Our clients include institutional leaders such as Cambridge University, Google, Samsung, Cleveland Clinic, Tencent, and Stanford University.

NBBJ is an Equal Opportunity Employer. M/F Disabled and Vet EEO/AA Employer.

NBBJ does not accept unsolicited resumes or similar submissions from third party recruiters or employment agencies. Any unsolicited materials received by NBBJ from a source other than an individual candidate will be considered NBBJ property and NBBJ reserves the right to pursue and hire candidates referred to us without any financial obligation to the third party in question. If you are interested in becoming an approved NBBJ external recruiter, please contact a member of the NBBJ Talent Acquisition Team.