Experiential Designer Jobs in Portland, OR (NOW HIRING)

Environmental Designer

Hi, we're Pinnacle, an experiential marketing agency that builds what it dreams up. Strategists, creatives, builders, and your future besties, all living at the intersection of big ideas and sawdust. An idea isn't worth much to us unless it can live IRL. And if we're going to build it, it had better move somebody.

We're looking for an Environmental Designer to join our design studio. This is a remote role, open to candidates anywhere in the US. You'll report to a Design Director and work alongside creatives, producers, strategists, and the people who actually build the thing.

Here's something that makes us different: we run two studios. Environmental designs trade show exhibits, showrooms, and fabricated branded spaces - the places people walk into. Experiential designs activations, festivals, tours, and live moments. This role sits in environmental, and that's where you'll build your craft. But the wall between the two studios is more of a doorway. If you want to stretch into experiential work, we'll make room for it.

The Role

You're a designer who does the work. Concepting, modeling, rendering, iterating, and defending the idea in the room.

You'll take a brief and a footprint and turn them into a space worth walking into - one that holds up under budget, the laws of gravity, venue rules, and a timeline that never feels generous enough. You'll design for how people actually move: sightlines, traffic flow, where they stop, what pulls them in, where they linger...

You'll learn that the best environmental design is more than decoration on a booth. It's a story someone walks through without realizing they're being told one.

What You'll Do

• Design branded environments. Custom trade show exhibits, showrooms, branded interiors, and installations, from first sketch through production handoff.
• Build the visual case. Spatial concepts, floor plans, elevations, mood boards, 3D models, and renderings good enough to sell the idea on their own.
• Explore, then explore more. Push multiple directions before settling. First ideas are rarely the best ones.
• Design for how it gets built. Understand materials, finishes, fabrication methods, and constraints, designing within them without designing small.
• Hand it off cleanly. Share 3D files and design intent drawings with graphics, estimating, project management, and fabrication partners.
• Present your thinking. Walk internal teams and clients through the concept and the why behind it.
• Take feedback well. Absorb notes, fold them in, and keep the concept intact.
• Stretch when you want to. Raise your hand for new projects and we'll find you a lane.

Who You Are

• A visual thinker who's happiest with a model open and a problem to solve.
• Curious about design, architecture, art, materials, and what's happening in culture - and it shows in the work.
• Organized enough to run several projects at once without dropping one.
• Someone who can explain a design decision, not just make one.
• Collaborative by default. Egos stay at the door.

What You Bring

• 4-7 years designing trade show exhibits, branded environments, retail, museums, or related spatial work.
• A strong portfolio of environmental and experiential work. A portfolio is required for consideration - please include it with your application.
• Twinmotion and Unreal Engine are our preferred rendering tools. Modeling software is your call - 3ds Max, Rhino, SketchUp, whatever gets you there.
• Adobe Creative Suite.
• A real understanding of scale, proportion, materials, lighting, and environmental graphics.
• Comfort reading and producing construction drawings.
• Conceptual sketching skills a plus.
• Using AI tools to speed up ideation, visualization, and iteration is a plus. We're interested in designers who are figuring out where these tools help.

Where This Goes

This isn't a role we expect you to sit in forever. Designers here grow into Senior Designer and Design Director, or move laterally into experiential if that's where the pull is. We hire people we want to keep, and we'd rather grow a Design Director than go recruit one.

Not For You If...

• You want to design the same booth in a different color forever.
• Feedback feels like an attack rather than information.
• You'd rather protect your original idea than make the final one better.
• Budget and fabrication constraints feel like someone else's problem.

Why Pinnacle

• Fully custom work for brands you've heard of, with a team that actually builds what it draws.
• Two studios, one doorway - build depth in environmental, get exposure to experiential.
• A clear path forward, and leaders whose job is to get you down it.
• Remote-first design studio, so you can do your best work where you work best.
• Competitive pay and benefits.
• A shot at the next "holy smokes" moment.