Advanced CMF and Brand Designer
General Motors · Shanghai
Job Description
Work Arrangement
This role is categorized as on-site. This means the successful candidate is expected to report to Advanced Technical Center in Shanghai, China full time.
The Role -
GM Design China is seeking a Advanced CMF and Brand Designer to lead forward-looking color, material, and finish strategy across concept, advanced, and production-relevant vehicle programs. This role is responsible for shaping a strong CMF point of view for the brand, identifying future design opportunities, and translating cultural insight, trend foresight, and material innovation into compelling design direction.
This is not simply a program execution role. The successful candidate will help define the next chapter of GM’s CMF expression in China by building advanced proposals, influencing brand material strategy, and guiding the development of distinctive, emotionally resonant, and future-facing CMF experiences across interior, exterior, and holistic brand touchpoints.
The role also carries an important brand-facing responsibility, with an approximate split of 70% Advanced CMF and 30% brand. This designer will help articulate how Design contributes to brand meaning, desirability, and storytelling, and will interface closely with marketing and communications partners to ensure Design direction can support broader brand narratives, launch stories, and customer-facing content.
The Role & What You’ll Do
- Lead development of strategic CMF vision for advanced and production programs, aligning proposals with brand intent, market shifts, and future customer expectations.
- Define and communicate long-range CMF direction through trend forecasting, cultural insight, competitive analysis, and material storytelling.
- Create advanced color, material, grain, décor, and finish concepts that push brand differentiation and inspire future design programs.
- Build compelling CMF narratives, seasonal or program-specific palettes, and material frameworks that can guide both concept exploration and downstream execution.
- Identify and develop innovative, sustainable, and next-generation materials and finishes in collaboration with internal partners and external suppliers.
- Networking and relationship building with material suppliers, innovation partners, and development teams.
- Influence brand material strategy by proposing new expressions, material typologies, finish directions, and design principles relevant to China and global design teams.
- Help define the role of CMF within the broader brand experience, ensuring color and material direction supports a clear, distinctive, and emotionally resonant brand identity.
- Interface closely with marketing and communications teams to align CMF strategy with brand storytelling, product messaging, launch narratives, and customer-facing communication.
- Partner across China and Global Design, brand, marketing, communications, and business stakeholders to translate CMF thinking into language and visual assets that can support both internal alignment and external expression.
- Serve as a key interface with global design and brand partners, ensuring China insights, CMF strategy, and brand direction are aligned with global frameworks while also advocating for China-relevant opportunities and market needs.
- Work closely with Design, Engineering, Program Teams, Appearance Quality, and suppliers to ensure advanced ideas are informed by feasibility while preserving creative ambition.
- Lead preparation of high-quality strategic deliverables, including trend decks, material stories, renderings, sample boards, vision presentations, and leadership review content.
- Support the translation of advanced CMF thinking into clear targets and direction for production-facing teams when appropriate.
- Mentor junior designers and contribute to a strong culture of curiosity, innovation, material excellence, and design rigor across the CMF team.
Your Skills & Abilities (Required Qualifications) :
- Bachelor’s degree in CMF Design, Industrial Design, Material Design, Textile Design, Fashion Design, or a related field
- Typically 8+ years of professional CMF design experience in automotive, mobility, product, fashion, or other design-driven industries
- Strong portfolio demonstrating excellence in strategic CMF thinking, advanced concept development, trend translation, and brand-led material storytelling
- Deep understanding of materials, finishes, textures, grains, décor, color harmony, and emerging process opportunities
- Proven ability to move from insight and vision through concept definition and into production-aware design direction
- Strong visual communication and presentation skills, including digital and physical CMF storytelling for senior leadership audiences
- Ability to work effectively in a highly collaborative, cross-functional, and global environment
- Fluent spoken and written English; Mandarin capability strongly preferred
What Will Give You a Competitive Edge (Preferred Qualifications)
- Experience working across premium or luxury brands
- Strong understanding of China market trends, customer aspirations, and cultural design signals
- Experience with advanced design, concept vehicles, sustainability strategy, and future mobility
- Strong network or experience working with material suppliers, innovation partners, and development teams
- Ability to influence direction through strong design rationale, strategic thinking, and executive-level storytelling
About GM
Our vision is a world with Zero Crashes, Zero Emissions and Zero Congestion and we embrace the responsibility to lead the change that will make our world better, safer and more equitable for all.
Why Join Us
We believe we all must make a choice every day – individually and collectively – to drive meaningful change through our words, our deeds and our culture. Every day, we want every employee to feel they belong to one General Motors team.
Non-Discrimination and Equal Employment Opportunities
General Motors is committed to being a workplace that is not only free of unlawful discrimination, but one that genuinely fosters inclusion and belonging. We strongly believe that providing an inclusive workplace creates an environment in which our employees can thrive and develop better products for our customers.
We encourage interested candidates to review the key responsibilities and qualifications for each role and apply for any positions that match their skills and capabilities. Applicants in the recruitment process may be required, where applicable, to successfully complete a role-related assessment(s) and/or a pre-employment screening prior to beginning employment. To learn more, visit How we Hire.
Accommodations
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