Who are Opendesk?

We’re an energetic and highly motivated team, building a new type of furniture company out of our studio in East London. We work with a network of independent designers and makers to create beautiful furniture, local to where it’s needed.

Founded on open source principles, using digital fabrication and operating as a marketplace, Opendesk connects skilled craftspeople to customers near to them, whilst working with independent designers around the world who are designing fantastic products.

In this way, Opendesk can provide design furniture that’s made locally all around the world, instead of manufactured centrally and shipped across continents. We call this new manufacturing model Open Making. It’s all about rethinking the global supply chain: replacing it with something altogether more local, social and personal.

We’ve started out with a focus on functional furniture for creative workspaces. As a global platform we’ve already provided products to hundreds of fantastic organisations around the world - from innovative startups in London to established web and technology companies in New York and San Francisco, alongside a whole host of amazing businesses spanning 20+ countries.

What is your mission at Opendesk?

Our mission is to build the world’s most equitable and distributed supply chain.

Replacing factories with faces, we’re aiming to become the leading platform for localised manufacturing and change the way products are designed and made through the power of the web, independent local craft, and digital tooling.

You can read all about our core values in our Charter - a public document which sets out the principles under which we operate, and which is subscribed to by all Opendesk-ers.

What are you building at Opendesk?

We’re building a design-led technology platform that connects designers, makers and customers.

We host a library of digital furniture designs that can be fabricated via our international network of professional maker workshops.

Opendesk designs are hosted on our site on behalf of independent designers and shared under terms of the designers’ own choosing. This means that our design files are largely available to download for local making (typically under one of the Creative Commons licenses). This model has established Opendesk as the leading furniture platform for the rapidly growing Maker Movement; Opendesk designs are made by independent makers everywhere - from experienced manufacturers in our professional network to skilled hobbyists in fablabs around the world.

Our business model centres on delivering fair value to all our stakeholders, with independent makers quoting to deliver products locally at a price that suits them, designers setting their own design fee for every product sold, and Opendesk receiving proportional platform fees.

Opendesk has its roots in the open source, design and maker-movement communities. We’re striving to build a genuinely exciting and values-based organisation, and are looking for new colleagues who share our values and passionately care as much as we do about making a positive impact in the world.

How far along are you on your journey?

Opendesk launched in 2013 and since then we’ve been extensively covered in design and technology media, and Opendesk designs have been featured in leading museums around the world: from the Victoria & Albert Museum and Design Museum in London to the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein.

Unlike typical ‘high-design’ products, the distributed digital manufacturing of Opendesk products makes them accessible at competitive prices compared to traditional channels and ensures that each piece is made as close to the end-user as possible - for faster delivery, reduced shipping, and more opportunities for local businesses. Since launching we’ve sold over £1M worth of furniture to workspace customers around the world and had over 400 independent makers register on our network.

We’re proud of how far we’ve come since the first Lean Desk was designed and made, and we’re now looking to grow our team and scale our Open Making model around the world. We have an ambitious plan - and we’re looking for talented individuals to help make it happen!

Direct candidates only please, we are not looking to work with recruiters at this time - we’re sure you’re all lovely but we already have an internal resource for hiring.