Timberland: Senior Designer, Footwear

At Timberland, we’re a force of nature.  You will be responsible for product integrity and interpretation with respect to design, manufacturing, quality, and cost.  You will work on icon and packs products preparing technical fit specifications and collaborating with designers and factories to ensure that the specifications, measurements, fit, and construction are in keeping with the product brief.  As a trusted member of our Global Footwear Design Team reporting to the Senior Manager, Design, you will build relationships and partnerships across the Global Footwear Design, Global Footwear Development, and Global Merchandising teams with an openness to giving and receiving feedback and a shared focus on team collaboration to achieve the best result.  We’re a team that steps outside, works hard together, and moves the world forward.  The brand is widely recognized as the arbiter of boot culture.  With a rich heritage of craftsmanship and an eye toward the future, Timberland has a decades-long commitment to make products responsibly, protect the outdoors, and build community. 

So, before we get to the job details, take a minute to learn a little more about us – our values and our culture.  If you can see yourself working side-by-side with a team of fun, adventure-loving people, Timberland just may be the place for you.  

To learn more about our values and our culture, visit Timberland Careers or www.timberland.com.

Senior Designer, Footwear (Global Timberland) 

What will you do?

A day in the life of a senior footwear designer for Timberland looks a little like this. 

As a key member of the Global Footwear Design Team, you will play a vital role in upholding product integrity across design, manufacturing, quality, and cost. Reporting to the Senior Manager of Design, you will focus on our Icon products, derivatives, and seasonal story-building by preparing technical specifications and collaborating closely with developers and manufacturing partners to ensure alignment with the product briefs.  In this collaborative role, you’ll build strong cross-functional relationships with teams in Global Footwear/Apparel Design, Development, and Merchandising. Your openness to feedback and commitment to teamwork will be essential in delivering premium, well-crafted products that meet our performance and design standards.

Let’s break down that day-in-the-life a bit more.

What you will do:

• Initiate and provide focused, feasible, functional, commercial, and innovative footwear ideas that are appropriate for the Timberland brand, and the targets consumer in a timely manner. 
• Be responsible for the creation of new lasts and outsoles and will need to have a strong collection building mindset. 
• Support Innovation initiatives and be flexible to work across additional teams, including Men’s and Women’s, as needed.  
• Lead with a “Design First” point of view to bring innovation and brand-right products to the marketplace. 
• Create two- and three-dimensional sketches illustrating new, unique product ideas and innovative concepts which meet the expectations delineated in the product brief. 
• Use creative problem-solving skills to assist the Global Merchandising and Development teams in fulfilling product and calendar objectives quickly and efficiently. 
• Focus attention on the extent of the product briefs to support the category goals and objectives. 
• Develop an awareness of key accounts and channels of distribution derived from market insights and trends to ensure concept feasibility. 
• Follow the Brand’s creative direction within the application and use of traditional and new materials, compounds, and constructions and color direction. 
• Gather and present fashion and trend inspiration and storyboards to support concepts relevant to projects. 
• Develop an understanding of the footwear category by following consumer trends through social media and utilizing trend resources. 
• Create unique graphic prints and elements for footwear applications on patterns and materials. 
• In conjunction with a product developer, prepare the approved design into a package of two- and/or three-dimensional information which adequately describes and utilizes current and feasible manufacturing and assembly techniques; while taking into consideration performance, fit, and costing objectives. 
• Maintain and provide a clear form of documentation and communication with team members to ease the transfer of the design solutions from concept through commercialization. 
• Occasionally travel to regional and global locations to present and execute design concepts with a focus on business (accounts), insight (consum