Footwear Product Program Manager

Koobz; Ventura (CA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

Koobz seeks a program manager to own the product organization’s programs from first conversations to shipped product, and to build the systems that make execution repeatable. You will manage schedules, approvals, and dependencies across engineering, design, and external partners, turning a drafted process into a living workflow.

You will also formalize documentation, define completion criteria, and keep the leadership team informed about progress and risks as the team scales.

Qualifications

• Six to ten years in program or project management for physical product.
• Footwear or apparel development experience with size runs, grading, fit and samples.
• Enough technical literacy to follow engineering discussions and translate into a plan.
• Evidence of building processes people actually adopted.
• Genuine enthusiasm for this work and ability to keep a plan and team aligned.

Responsibilities

• Run both portfolios of programs: schedules, owners, dependencies, and reviews.
• Hold the gates and ensure commitments reflect production reality.
• Coach the right specialist and own the schedule across engineering, design, materials research and partners.
• Own our documentation: determine what exists, who writes it, where it lives, and currency.
• Scope new engineering investigations and turn them into defined programs.
• Keep leadership informed about status, risks, and tradeoffs.

Skills

Program management

Footwear development

Job description

Koobz makes 3D-printed footwear to order. Because there are no molds and no tooling, brands and creators who could never justify the cost of a shoe program can now make one. We are about fifteen people in Ventura with our own print floor, working with streetwear labels, talent agencies and consumer brands.

We are a strong engineering team. What we do not have is anyone who owns how the work runs, and that has become the limit on how much we can take on.

The role

You will own program management for the product organization: the customer programs that take a partner from first conversation to shipped product, and the internal engineering programs that improve the footwear itself. That means holding the schedule, running the review cadence, making sure decisions get made rather than deferred, and knowing at any moment what every project is waiting on.

You will also build the system that makes that possible. We have a drafted process and a partial set of documentation. Turning that into something the team actually uses, and keeping it current as we grow, is a core part of the job rather than an afterthought.

What you will do

• Run both portfolios of programs: schedules, owners, dependencies, and the reviews that keep them moving.

• Hold the gates. Commitments to customers are made on the basis of what the factory can actually deliver, and not before the product is ready to be committed.

• Make sure the right specialist owns each piece of work across engineering, design, materials research and outside partners, then hold the schedule across all of them.

• Own our documentation: what needs to exist, who writes it, where it lives, and whether it is current.

• Work with the team to scope new engineering investigations, and turn them into programs with a clear definition of done.

• Keep the leadership team honest about what is on track, what is not, and what the tradeoffs are.

What we are looking for

• Six to ten years in program or project management for physical product, with accountability for schedules that mattered.

• Footwear or apparel development experience. You should be fluent in size runs, grading, fit and confirmation samples, and what it takes to get a product ready to sell.

• Enough technical literacy to follow an engineering conversation and turn it into a plan.

• Evidence that you have built processes people actually adopted, and that you dealt with it when they did not.

• Genuine enthusiasm for this work. The person who thrives here is the one who finds satisfaction in a plan that holds and a team that knows where things stand.

Helpful, not required

• Additive manufacturing, CAD or digital product development exposure.

• Experience at a company small enough that you had to build the function rather than inherit it.

Why it is worth doing

Most program management roles mean administering a system somebody else designed decades ago. This one means designing it, for a company changing how footwear is made. You will have the leadership team's attention and the room to do it properly.