Product Developer for Sweaters Knits

POSITION SUMMARY:

• The Product Developer works closely with the Senior Director to coordinate the complete development of sweater knits from material sourcing to final sample. This role supports the design team to help the brand realize design concepts and samples. Our product developer partners with Merchandising to ensure accuracy of product offering to our customers. This role combines design awareness and business skills to create products that meet both market and production requirements through material/ technique research and liaison to manufacturing partners.

POSITION RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Daily Email Communication & Follow-up with factories and raw material vendors
• Coordinate, receive, price, and maintain organization for all mill yarn cards
• Attend raw material, trim, vendor appointments to maintain knowledge of collection qualities/trends and vendor capabilities
• Source all yarns and trims for design meetings and swatch requests
• Request & Develop basic swatch requests for design meetings and counter sourcing submits
• Order & Coordinate all raw materials and trims for proto samples, SMS, and counter samples
• Issue all PO’s (proto/sample yarn, trims, raw material, contractors, proto samples, SMS, counterexamples)
• Process all overseas & domestic invoices (raw material, trims, manufacturers, contractors) in RLM & Softco
• Submit, manage, follow-up, track, receive and comment on all labdip standards and submits for development & production
• Cross-Functional communication with other divisions /categories to ensure labdip comments/standards aligned and up-to-date
• Coordinate, arrange, and monitor all inbound and outbound courier parcels & local messengers for raw materials and contractors
• Coordinate, follow-up, track, and receive SMS garments, SMS sales swatches, and SMS reference swatches
• Manage all delivery dates and communication for SMS garments
• Liaison and arrange with Fabric’s team to pass of sales swatches and group descriptions
• Responsible to prepare and organize all SMS garments for line edits, styling, and Ecomm/sales pass-offs
• Ensure all trims (including buttons, hardware, labels) are accounted for on SMS garments.
• Prepare all raw materials for design meetings including yarn cards and swatch standards
• Attend Design Meetings & Production and Development Fittings
• Generate Excel line plan count following design meetings
• Cross-Functional communication with Merchandising for all design/raw material, SKU count, and delivery updates/announcements
• Present at BOM review
• Countersource yarns for production and arrange counter swatches and samples for approval
• Manage YDS, TDS, FDS pass off to production
• Manage all development T&A communication with vendors including raw material deliveries
• Partner with team to issue SMS b/d to include all yarn delivery, color code, and color name information.

POSITION REQUIREMENTS:

• 4-5 years experience. Bachelor’s Degree.

SKILLS AND KNOWLEDGE:

• Preferable Education/Experience in fully fashioned sweater knits
• Proficient in Microsoft Excel, Outlook, and generic photo editing software with drawing tools
• Experience working in modular end-to-end business solutions software: ie Blue Cherry, RLM, GCS, Apparel Magic, File Maker
• Clear & direct writing skills, detail-oriented, problem solver, good memory, organized, positive attitude, willingness to learn, proactive, work well under pressure, team player, passionate, self-motivated, analytical, good with numbers, eye for quality