Product Designer and Developer in Robertsbridge

ABOUT KINLEY: Kinley is an evolving and fast-growing family company. We design and manufacture high-quality landscaping products for the public realm, landscape edging, street furniture, planters and surfacing. Kinley works with landscape architects and specifiers to put well-detailed, well-documented products into schemes across the UK. We're expanding our ranges and our specifier audience, and we're building the in-house marketing function to support that growth.

THE ROLE: Overview Innovation sits at the heart of Kinley, and this role will lead the development of coherent, system-based product collections for commercial, private and public-realm landscaping projects, aligned with landscape integration, longevity and low-carbon thinking. The successful candidate will combine strong industrial or product design capability with commercial awareness, sector understanding and the ability to create products that balance design quality, technical performance, manufacturability, sustainability and market demand.

What You’ll Do

• Design within the Kinley collection DNA
• Develop system‑based concepts (families, not one‑offs)
• Explore proportion, section logic and material use
• Produce early‑stage outputs: Sketches, Clean 3D concept visuals, Contextual views in public‑realm and private rooftop settings
• Collaborate on refining design intent prior to engineering
• Creation of fabrication/manufacturing drawings
• Own and maintain the testing of all required products to standards such as BROOF, BREAM, etc to ensure compliance within industry regulations
• Be a ‘hands‑on’ designer, getting involved with product testing
• Find and source suppliers across all product categories where relevant
• Always be innovating, not just with product, but with ways of working
• Be revenue and profit driven, don’t be limited by our own manufacturing abilities, think outside of the box

Experience Required

• Industrial / product design background
• Experience with public‑realm, civic or infrastructure products
• Strong understanding of proportion, structure and materials
• Ability to design systems, not isolated objects
• Confident visual communicator
• Experience with CAD, Solidworks or similar

Mindset

• You are comfortable designing within constraints
• Clear, pragmatic, and commercially aware
• Interested in long‑life, scalable commercial landscaping products
• Collaborative and idea‑driven rather than ego‑led
• Hungry, Humble, & Smart

Deliverables

• Product Development: Develop a product range each quarter that will have the opportunity to deliver £4m per year
• Innovation: Establish and maintain a structured pipeline of commercially viable product and system concepts aligned with industry direction, marketing calendar, and business direction
• Technical & Compliance: Ensure all new products achieve required compliance, testing, and manufacturing readiness standards.

Job Types: Full-time, Permanent

Pay: £35,000.00-£45,000.00 per year

Benefits:

• Additional leave
• Company events
• Enhanced paternity leave
• On-site parking
• Referral programme
• Sick pay

Application question(s): Please say what experience you have in Industrial / product design

Experience: Experience with CAD, Solidworks or similar: 1 year (preferred)

Licence/Certification: Driving licence and transport, due to location of offices (required)

Work Location: In person