The North Face: Senior Product Developer, Footwear (Global)

Now that you’ve found the job description, what’s next? At The North Face we dare to lead the world forward through Exploration. We were born to Explore, Disrupt and to Lead. We were born to Love Wild Places and to Spark Curiosity. We believe that exploration is a mindset - both on the mountain and off the mountain - and it infuses everything we do. As a community of explorers, we stay curious about new ideas, places, and people. 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 adventure-loving people, The North Face just may be the place for you.  To learn more about our values and our culture, visit The North Face Careers or www.thenorthface.com.  

Position: Sr. Product Developer, Footwear

What will you do? 

A day in the life of a Sr. Product Developer, Footwear at The North Face looks a little like this. The primary responsibility of the Senior Developer Footwear is to manage the end-to-end development process to produce best in class product from concept thru buy ready.  The Senior Developer will be responsible for the development, engineering, costing and specification processes of creating innovative and technologically advanced products that meet the needs of our customers and end users.  In this role, the Senior Developer will be overseeing and managing the cross functional efforts across the brand including Product Management, Design, Materials, Costing, our Asia Development team, and Sourcing Organization.Let’s break down that day-in-the-life a bit more. 

• Manages the development of key seasonal innovations and company product lines as assigned.
• Plans and tracks the development of products to ensure a timely completion following the predetermined product development calendar.
• Aligns seasonally with the fit and wear testing department to properly test and validate product performance, fit, and comfort.
• Able to develop product to target costs meeting or exceeding brand margin and profitability requirements.
• Develops products, recommends materials, and construction techniques that meet Design expectations.
• Interacts with Product Director, Product Manager, Design, Marketing, Asia Development resources, to create product that exceeds consumer expectations for performance, fit, and comfort.
• Partner with the Denver product creation team, Asia Sourcing team, FTW leadership, All Triangles, and other internal and external customers to establish yourself as the lead for this role.
• Establish seasonal fit, wear test, and field testing plans for your products with the category teams.
• Work with the category teams to clearly understand product attributes and consumer benefits and create product that meets these needs from a performance, fit, comfort, and costing standpoint.
• Clearly understand the seasonal financial directives and work with the costing team to establish strategic initiatives each season to mitigate cost increases to meet seasonal margin and brand financial targets.
• Lead the development of new materials, construction techniques, and processes, to create innovative and technically superior products each season in conjunction with the timelines of the Company’s business strategies.

What do you need to succeed? We all have unique skills that we bring to work and celebrate every day. For this role, there are foundation skills you’ll need to succeed and excel. Additionally, while formal education in a related field is great to have, we are most interested in your 5+ years of experience and professional achievements.

The foundation skills you will need in this position are: 

• Demonstrates great interpersonal skills, including the ability to create trust with cross functional teams.
• Able to lead meetings and implement new plans and policies with optional supervision.
• Able to independently manage all aspects of moderate to high complexity products.
• Demonstrates a solid knowledge of fit, pattern making, and construction expertise, as well as knowledge of manufacturing processes.
• Demonstrates a solid knowledge of product category, product materials, and product development lifecycle.
• Participates in special projects, process, or calendar optimization with supervision.
• Able to resolve conflict with co