# Erik Glaser > Director of UX Design at Rivian Location: San Francisco, California, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/erikglaser Experienced design leader with a broad skillset at the intersection of software and hardware. I’ve spent over 15 years in automotive product design in Silicon Valley. Graduate of Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Design. ## Work Experience ### Director of UX Design @ Rivian Jan 2023 – Present | Palo Alto, California, United States ### Principal Designer, Vehicle UX @ Rivian Jan 2021 – Jan 2023 | Palo Alto, California, United States ### Lead UX Designer @ Rivian Jan 2020 – Jan 2021 | San Francisco Bay Area ### Principal Product Designer @ Volkswagen Group of America Innovation and Engineering Center California (IECC) Jan 2017 – Jan 2020 | Belmont, California - Design Lead for the Interior & Exterior Concepts group, directing concept vehicle build-ups, vehicle UX proposals, and other large projects. - Provide design leadership and mentoring younger designers and project leads, budgeting and assigning designers and engineers to projects, presenting work to CEO and Board-level stakeholders, setting future strategy for our portfolio, working with legal, PR, or government affairs, and jumping in where needed to sketch, storyboard, wireframe, design digital assets, CAD hardware, story-craft, or build models. - Established and maintain responsibility for our Mixed Reality Laboratory, a dedicated facility for room-scale VR and AR simulations for developing vehicle concepts and retail space concepts. ### Senior Staff Product Designer @ Volkswagen of America, Inc Jan 2014 – Jan 2017 As the Senior Staff Product Designer and Deputy Team Leader of the Human Machine Interface team, I work to conceptualize new products and digital experiences for future vehicles in the VW Group. I lead major projects, run creative and technical brainstorming sessions, sketch concepts by hand or by Wacom tablet, generate Solidworks parts and assemblies for rapid prototyping, and construct showcar-quality models. I contribute on the management level to the overall strategy of my team and the larger organization of the ERL. In addition to hardware design, I work on interaction design concepts for next-generation infotainment systems for the Audi, VW, and Bentley brands. I was deeply involved in the interaction design concept and much of the graphics showcased in the Brivido concept car at the 2012 Geneva Auto Show. My main area of focus in the last 2 years has been on concepts related to self-driving vehicles. I am very involved in various projects in this area and represent our interests to relevant government agencies. The Audi James 2025 concept, debuted at CeBIT 2014, is a futuristic vision of a potential interior for one of these vehicles. I was heavily involved in the concept design and interaction/graphics work during the 2 years of development for the James 2025 concept. ### Senior Product Designer @ Volkswagen of America, Inc Jan 2013 – Jan 2014 Supported many projects at a high level of quality, providing UI, UX, and Industrial Design deliverables for projects on the Audi, VW, and Bentley brands. I served as project manager for multiple projects, and acted as design lead on a large project for autonomous vehicle development. Generated concept sketches, CAD models, high-quality renderings, physical prototypes, storyboards, UI layouts, UX state charts, software graphics, and concept videos. ### Industrial Designer @ Volkswagen of America, Inc Jan 2009 – Jan 2013 Generated designs for climate unit hardware, concepts for the Audi MMI input device, showcar-quality concepts for interactive elements in the Volkswagen Phaeton. Provided UI design and graphics for multiple mobile applications and concepts for infotainment systems for VW and Audi brands. ### Industrial Designer @ Carnegie Mellon University Jan 2008 – Jan 2009 I worked on the exterior appearance and mechanical layout of humanoid robot prototypes. This included initial concept sketches and renderings, moved on to full scale models, and finished with the construction of a small fleet of functional robots to be used in research programs at Carnegie Mellon and Stanford. ## Education ### Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in Industrial and Product Design Carnegie Mellon University ### Product Design - study abroad in Product Design University of the Arts London ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/erik-glaser-6a666595 - Portfolio: http://www.erikglaser.com --- Source: https://flows.cv/erikglaser JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/erikglaser/resume.json Last updated: 2026-04-13