Description

Ripley Design is looking for an experienced Senior Landscape Architect with strong design instincts, technical depth, and the confidence to solve complex problems.

We are looking for someone who can take a project from a client’s vision through a collaborative design process and turn it into a thoughtful, buildable set of construction documents. Great design is more than making something look good. It means asking the right questions, working through constraints, developing strong concepts, and carrying the original design intent all the way into the details.

This is a senior, hands-on design role, not a traditional project management position. You will have significant influence over the quality of our work while mentoring other designers and helping strengthen the standards, tools, and processes behind how we design.

If you are an experienced landscape architect who still loves designing, and who enjoys making the people and work around you better, we would like to meet you.

About Ripley Design

Ripley Design is a landscape architecture, land planning, and entitlement firm based in Fort Collins, Colorado.

For more than 30 years, we have helped shape communities throughout Northern Colorado and beyond. Ripley exists to create better communities through our leadership and problem solving. We are intentionally a generalist firm, with projects ranging from urban plazas, neighborhood parks, streetscapes, and outdoor amenity spaces to multifamily communities, mixed-use developments, and large master-planned projects.

We believe strong design requires creativity, problem-solving, collaboration, and the leadership needed to get good ideas built. Our team values Balance, Fun, Family, Professionalism, and Responsibility, and we are actively improving the systems behind how we work so talented people can spend more time doing excellent work and less time fighting unnecessary chaos.

What You’ll Do

As a Senior Landscape Architect, you will be one of the experienced design voices in our office. You will:

• Lead and contribute to landscape architectural design from concept through construction documents.
• Independently solve complex design and site-planning problems while carrying design intent through materials, planting, grading relationships, site elements, details, and documentation.
• Remain hands-on in design production, particularly in AutoCAD, while using tools such as Photoshop, SketchUp, and Lumion to explore and communicate ideas.
• Produce and oversee clear, coordinated, buildable construction documents and custom details.
• Work closely with Ripley Project Managers to deliver quality design within established scopes, budgets, and schedules.
• Coordinate design work with architects, civil engineers, and other consultants.
• Review the work of other designers, provide thoughtful design direction, and perform QA/QC reviews.
• Mentor developing landscape architects and designers.
• Help refine and consistently apply CAD standards, design standards, drawing standards, and design-team workflows.

Your primary responsibility is design and technical leadership. Ripley Project Managers will manage project scopes, schedules, budgets, and overall project administration.

Ripley offers:

• A diverse range of landscape architecture and site-design projects.
• Meaningful design responsibility and autonomy.
• A close-knit, collaborative team with direct access to firm leadership.
• Opportunities to mentor others and influence how our design practice evolves.
• Professional development and support for professional licensing and industry involvement.
• Hybrid flexibility, with regular in-office collaboration in our Fort Collins studio.
• Group medical insurance and employer-provided basic life insurance for eligible employees.
• Paid time off and paid holidays, including a year-end holiday closure.
• A 401(k) plan with an employer contribution for eligible employees.
• Eligibility for Ripley Design’s discretionary bonus program.

Our office is in Fort Collins, Colorado, with easy access to Old Town, the foothills, trails, and everything Northern Colorado has to offer. Hybrid work is available, although we believe this role benefits from meaningful time in the office because design collaboration, mentoring, and team development are important parts of the position.

Compensation

The anticipated base salary range is $90,000–$125,000 annually + discretionary bonuses, depending on experience, qualifications, portfolio, and demonstrated capabilities.

How to Apply

Please submit:

• Your resume.
• A portfolio or selected examples of your work.
• A brief note telling us why Ripley interests you and what you believe you could add to our team.

For work completed as part of a team, please identify your specific role and contribution. We are interested in both polished final work and evidence of how you think, from early concepts and design studies through technical documentation and built results.

Learn more at ripleydesigninc.com.

Ripley Design is an equal opportunity employer. Employment decisions are based on qualifications, experience, demonstrated ability, and the requirements of the position, without discrimination based on any status protected by applicable law.

If you love design, enjoy solving hard problems, and want your experience to have a real impact on both projects and people, we would like to hear from you.

Requirements

What We’re Looking For

The right person for this role is an accomplished landscape architect who is still excited about actually designing.

You should have:

• A current professional Landscape Architect license in at least one U.S. jurisdiction and the ability to obtain Colorado licensure.
• 8+ years of professional landscape architecture experience, with 12+ years preferred.
• A portfolio demonstrating creative, high-quality design work and your individual contribution to that work.
• Experience carrying projects through multiple phases of design, including construction documentation.
• Strong proficiency in AutoCAD and experience working within a professional CAD production environment.
• Strong knowledge of materials, detailing, planting design, and how landscape architectural designs are constructed.
• The ability to independently solve difficult design problems and organize your own work within established scopes, budgets, and deadlines.
• The ability to review others’ work, mentor developing designers, and provide clear, constructive design direction.
• Strong graphic and visual communication skills.

Experience that would be particularly valuable:

• Site planning and master planning.
• Municipal development review and entitlement.
• Land F/X.
• Photoshop, SketchUp, Lumion, or similar visualization tools.
• Improving CAD, documentation, QA/QC, or design standards.
• Experience across a broad mix of public and private development projects.

Why Ripley?

• Being a small firm creates opportunities that can be difficult to find in a much larger organization. 
• Your ideas can influence the work. Your experience can influence the team. And as your capabilities grow, your role can grow with them.

We are especially interested in someone who wants to remain actively involved in design while also mentoring others, improving how work gets done, and helping raise the quality of the practice around them.