Senior Soft Goods Industrial Designer

About Icarus Medical

Icarus Medical Innovations is a fast-growing medical device company based in Charlottesville, VA, building the next generation of custom orthopedic bracing. We use 3D scanning and additive manufacturing to produce patient-specific braces that meaningfully reduce pain and restore mobility for people who otherwise face joint replacement. We were ranked #302 on the Inc. 5000 and one of the fastest-growing medical device companies in Virginia. We design, print, and hand-build everything we ship out of Charlottesville.

Why This Role Exists

We need an owner for the soft goods side of the entire product line: someone who

• can take strapping and padding from "good enough" to "the best part of wearing the brace"
• redesign our existing soft goods to cut weight and material cost while elevating quality
• stand up scalable, manufacturable processes for both current SKUs and the new product lines we have in the pipeline.

What You'll Do

You will be the soft goods authority on the engineering and design team. You will report to the Director of Manufacturing, Head of Engineering, and the CEO. You will be working with the rest of the design team, our manufacturing operations, and clinicians and patients. Leadership is hands-on, opinionated, and demanding, in the best way, and you will need to be confident defending your design decisions with data, patient feedback, and prototypes.

• Own the full lifecycle of soft goods on every product: straps, padding, liners, sleeves, closures, and any fabric/foam/webbing component on an Icarus brace.
• Redesign existing soft goods on our current product line to reduce weight, upgrade materials, improve patient comfort, and stay aligned with existing BoMs and assembly workflows.
• Develop full soft goods systems for new products from the ground up, including upcoming products and iterate based on patient and clinician feedback.
• Take custom 3D surfaces from CAD (Fusion 360, Rhino), unroll/flatten them, and build production processes to cut and fabricate them at scale, including setting up tooling such as drag-knife CNC for custom frame padding.
• Design for manufacturing from day one. Specify materials, tolerances, seam constructions, attachment methods, and assembly steps that our production team can actually execute repeatedly.
• Source and qualify materials and vendors. Bring (or build) a network of soft goods manufacturers, foam/fabric/webbing suppliers, and contract sewing shops.
• Prototype fast. Sew, cut, bond, mold, test, repeat. Get parts on patients quickly and turn feedback into the next revision.
• Maintain BoMs, drawings, and 2D patterns/specs for production handoff.

What You Need to Have

• 3+ years of focused soft goods design experience (textiles, technical apparel, wearables, sports gear, medical bracing, footwear, packs, or similar). We are not looking for a recent graduate.
• Strong 2D pattern design skills, you can take a 3D form, develop the flat pattern, and produce sewable, manufacturable parts.
• Deep, current knowledge of materials: foams, fabrics, webbing, hook-and-loop, elastics, laminates, bonding adhesives, thermoformables. You know what to spec, where to source it, and what it costs.
• Proficiency in CAD, Fusion 360 strongly preferred, Rhino a plus. You can model, surface, unroll, and produce production drawings without hand-holding.
• Hands-on prototyping skills. Sewing, cutting, bonding, heat-forming, you build, you don't just draw.
• Solid Design for Manufacturing instincts. You think about scale, tolerance, repeatability, and cost as you design.
• Existing industry contacts in soft goods manufacturing, materials, or contract sewing.
• Comfort working directly with hands-on Leadership. You can take direct feedback, push back when you're right, and adjust quickly when you're not. Thick skin and strong opinions held loosely are both required.
• Knowledge of the medical device industry strongly preferred, orthopedic bracing, O&P, or wearable medical product experience is a major plus.
• You know more than we currently do about soft goods. You should be the expert in the room on this.

Nice to Have

• Direct experience designing braces, orthotics, or prosthetic soft goods.
• Experience setting up and running drag-knife CNC, laser cutting, ultrasonic welding, RF welding, or similar fabrication tooling.
• Experience scaling a soft goods process from one-off prototype to production volume.

What We Offer

• Competitive salary (see range below)
• Health, dental, and vision insurance
• 401(k)
• Paid time off
• A small, hungry team where your work ships to patients within weeks, not years
• Direct ownership of an entire product domain — no committee, no bureaucracy
• The chance to define how soft goods are done across the company

Compensation

$70,000 – $90,000 base salary, depending on depth of soft goods experience, medical device background, and CAD/DFM skill. Exceptional candidates with deep med device + materials expertise may be considered above this range.

Location

Charlottesville, VA, on-site preferred, with daily access to our prototyping shop, manufacturing floor, and the rest of the design team. Remote considered for an exceptional candidate, with regular travel to Charlottesville expected.

To Apply

Submit your resume and a portfolio showing soft goods work, patterns, prototypes, production parts, materials specs, anything that demonstrates your hands-on capability. A short note on a soft goods problem you solved and how you approached it will get our attention.