Following last week’s visit to New York City-based Rice+Lipka, we are moving our Meet Your Next Employer series west to California, where we find the nationwide powerhouse SmithGroup.

The firm, whose history traces back to 1818, has since expanded to encompass 19 offices across the United States, covering a wide variety of sectors including health, higher education, science and technology, and residential typologies.

The company is currently looking to add to its 1,300+ network by recruiting over on Archinect Jobs for roles in their San Diego and Los Angeles offices.

SmithGroup’s genesis stretches back to its founder Sheldon Smith in 1818, and grew from its Detroit origins into a multidisciplinary enterprise which would play a role in several defining moments in U.S. history, including the design of Henry Ford’s first manufacturing plants, and NASA’s Lunary Sample Receiving Laboratory.

“Just as we still carry the Smith name, every member of our team carries a bit of that Sheldon Smith spirit—an upstart eager to strike out and create inspiring places,” the firm notes.

Today, SmithGroup’s service offering spans broad disciplines including architecture, engineering, interiors, landscape architecture, and urban planning, to typology-specific consulting including educational campus planning and analytics, coastal engineering, healthcare and medical strategies, and laboratory planning.

Several of the firm’s recent projects have featured on our editorial. At the beginning of this year, we covered the latest news from the firm’s Gilcrease Museum project in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which is expected to open in 2024. In 2021, meanwhile, the firm received an AIA Small Project Award for its Fraesfield Trailhead scheme in Scottsdale, Arizona, and an AIA Healthcare Award for its Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center in Downey, California.

“Great design is about cultivating client relationships where creativity can flourish,” the firm says on their design philosophy. “It's about listening to and collaborating with clients to understand their needs and their objectives -- and then coming up with design solutions that are unique and meaningful and hit the bulls-eye of their expectations every time.”

The firm’s design work is supported by an extensive research and theory output, including thought pieces on data centers, outdoor working, and the future of higher education campuses after the COVID-19 pandemic. The firm has also published several pieces on its internship program, where interns offer reflections on the firm’s culture and outlook.

Meet Your Next Employer is one of a number of ongoing weekly series showcasing the opportunities available on our industry-leading job board. Our Job Highlights series looks at intriguing and topical employment opportunities currently available on Archinect Jobs, while our weekly roundups curate job opportunities by location, career level, and job description.