Role Summary

The Creative Studio is seeking a Sr. Manager, Environments to lead the team responsible for conceiving and executing Rivian's physical brand presence. This scope includes permanent and temporary built environments-such as tentpole events, pop-ups, and experiential activations-as well as maintaining up-to-date designs across all retail, flagship, and internal-facing spaces.

This leader will manage a multidisciplinary team of environmental designers, project leads, and fabrication specialists, while partnering closely with Facilities (Standards & Execution) teams, Marketing, Sales, Engineering, Finance/purchasing and GTM teams to bring Rivian's brand to life in the physical world.

The ideal candidate is an experienced strategic leader with a strong point of view on spatial design and experiential storytelling, a hands-on approach to execution, and the organizational acumen to manage complex multi-project portfolios, vendor ecosystems, and budgets.

Responsibilities

Team Leadership & Management

• Lead, mentor, and grow a multidisciplinary team of visual and environmental designers, fabrication specialists
• Set creative and executional standards for the team; provide clear direction, design feedback, and development opportunities.
• Run weekly leads calls, design reviews, and office hours to keep projects aligned and moving.
• In collaboration with Creative Studio Strategy and Ops, manage team workload, capacity, and resourcing across concurrent projects.

Environments

• Provide cross-functional support to the creative team responsible for the ongoing evolution of Rivian's spatial standards (all Rivian built environments), including prototype refreshes, and fixture design (vehicle display swatches, furniture, EGD).
• Manage retail activation rollouts in partnership with Sales, including signage campaigns, digital content deployment, and vendor coordination.

Events & Experiential Activations

• Support the production of Rivian's owned and partner events - including auto shows, tentpole activations (e.g., SXSW, Coachella), brand pop-ups, and community experiences.
• Collaborate with Marketing, GTM, and cross-functional stakeholders to develop experiential concepts that ladder to brand and commercial objectives.
• Oversee all aspects of event production: concept through build, vendor management, logistics, staffing, and on-site execution.
• As needed, assist with prototyping, vehicle display swatches, and furniture warehousing - tracking inventory, procurement, and vendor relationships.
• Develop and maintain a scalable event asset toolkit (outbound drive kits, event kits, RCV wraps, branded signage) to support activations of all sizes.

Vendor & Budget Management

• With support from the Creative Ops team, manage relationships with fabrication, signage, AV, and installation vendors - overseeing RFPs, vendor selection, POs, and ongoing performance.
• Support budget planning across projects and programs; depending on the project scope, partner with Facilities (Standards & Execution), Purchasing and Operations teams to drive efficient procurement and vendor onboarding.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of progressive experience in environmental design, experiential design, or brand activations - with at least 5 years in a leadership or management role.
• Proven track record conceiving and executing physical brand environments at scale - retail spaces, events, flagships, or pop-ups.
• Strong design sensibility across spatial design, EGD (environmental graphic design), CMF, and fabrication.
• Experience managing multidisciplinary creative teams, external vendors, and complex multi-project portfolios.
• Hands-on budget management experience; comfort with procurement tools and vendor contracting.
• Excellent cross-functional collaborator - able to translate brand vision into actionable briefs, align stakeholders, and drive decisions.
• Strong presentation skills; confident presenting creative concepts and project status to senior leadership.
• Thrives in fast-paced, ambiguous environments with competing priorities.
• Experience in automotive, consumer tech, or lifestyle brand environments preferred.
• Background in both permanent retail buildouts and temporary/experiential activations preferred.
• Familiarity with digital content systems for retail environments (touchscreens, interactive displays) preferred.
• Proficiency with Airtable, Figma, Adobe Creative Suite, or similar design tools preferred.

Pay Disclosure

The salary range for this role is $159,200 to $199,000 for Irvine, California based applicants. This is the lowest to highest salary we in good faith believe we would pay for this role at the time of this posting. An employee's position within the salary range will be based on several factors including, but not limited to, specific competencies, relevant education, qualifications, certifications, experience, skills, geographic location, shift, and organizational needs.

The successful candidate may be eligible for annual performance bonus and equity awards.

We offer a comprehensive package of benefits for full-time and part-time employees, their spouse or domestic partner, and children up to age 26, including but not limited to paid vacation, paid sick leave, and a competitive portfolio of insurance benefits including life, medical, dental, vision, short-term disability insurance, and long-term disability insurance to eligible employees. You may also have the opportunity to participate in Rivian's 401(k) Plan and Employee Stock Purchase Program if you meet certain eligibility requirements. Full-time employee coverage is effective on their first day of employment. Part-time employee coverage is effective the first of the month following 90 days of employment. More information about benefits is available at rivianbenefits.com.

You can apply for this role through careers.rivian.com (or through internal-careers-rivian.icims.com if you are a current employee). This job is not expected to be closed any sooner than 7/31/26.