Manager, Product Development-UA

Centric Brands; New York (NY); On-site; USD 90,000 - 100,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical benefits

401(k) matching

Summer Fridays

Generous PTO

Merchandise discounts

Career development opportunities

Job summary

Centric Brands is seeking a hands-on Senior Apparel Product Developer focused on end-to-end PD. You will collaborate with Design, Production, and Technical Design to align with brand vision and deadlines, reviewing submissions from overseas vendors and ensuring color accuracy, fabric knowledge, and manufacturing viability.

The role emphasizes leadership, cross-functional communication, and driving development schedules while maintaining quality across multiple product categories.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Product Development or related field.
• 5+ years of apparel product development or relevant industry experience.
• Expert understanding of the apparel PD lifecycle and milestones.
• Ability to manage PD across multiple product categories from concept to production.
• Experience communicating technical direction to overseas vendors.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with Design, Production, and Technical Design to meet deadlines and approvals.
• Participate in style-by-style milestone meetings aligning with brand vision.
• Review complex submissions with overseas vendors ensuring brand quality.
• Evaluate lab dips and color accuracy across categories.
• Utilize knowledge of fabrics, prints, trims, and garment construction.
• Review tech packs and create logs to guide factory execution.
• Collaborate with teams to keep development on schedule and accountable.
• Lead department head reviews to set direction and priorities.
• Drive fabrication development and new print techniques with cross-team input.
• Identify and resolve artwork, construction, and factory capability issues.

Skills

PD lifecycle

Garment construction

Color science

Screen printing

Embellishment tech

Vendor management

Leadership

Communication

FlexPLM

MS Office

Adobe Illustrator

Education

Bachelor's degree

5+ years apparel PD experience

Job description

About Centric Brands

Centric Brands is a leading lifestyle brand collective that designs, sources, markets and sells high quality products in multiple segments, including women’s, men’s and kid’s apparel, accessories, entertainment and beauty. Centric Brands focuses on customers and brands that drive the company’s future growth. The company emphasizes innovation, creativity and analytical thinking, and values respect for others and the hard work needed to achieve goals.

Production / Product Development

From sourcing raw materials to manufacturing, order placement, pricing, quality control and delivering finished products, the production/product development team ensures high standards and profitable operations at every step. We seek focused, results-driven, tenacious and highly flexible team players who will have opportunities to build rewarding careers with a leading lifestyle brand collective.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with Design, Production, and Technical Design to ensure deadlines are met and communicate status updates to all departments. Establish an efficient and transparent process to maintain a consistent flow of approvals.
• Participate in style-by-style milestone meetings to understand customer and brand vision while guiding development strategy and execution.
• Work directly with overseas vendors to review and approve complex product development submissions, including lab dips, fabric prints, graphic screen prints, decorative trims, sales samples and pre-production samples, ensuring brand quality and integrity are maintained.
• Evaluate lab dips with a strong understanding of color science to ensure color accuracy across product categories.
• Utilize extensive knowledge of woven and knit fabrics, fabric print techniques, graphic screen prints and garment construction across multiple categories.
• Evaluate initial tech packs through PLM while creating comment logs and reviewing samples to ensure details are executable by factories.
• Collaborate with Design, Production, and Sales teams to keep development on schedule per the design calendar, monitoring deadlines and communicating status to all departments.
• Lead department head review meetings on product and development, establishing direction and priorities while driving accountability across the team.
• Drive fabrication and technique development, identifying opportunities for innovation and efficiency across product lines; partner cross-departmentally to develop new print technique options and treatments.
• Identify and resolve technical issues related to artwork, garment construction, and factory capabilities, ensuring final production pack approvals reflect product requirements and artwork executes as intended in production.
• Maintain and continuously develop standard libraries of fabrics, prints, graphics and trims to support future development.
• Partner with Product Development leadership to improve department processes, establish consistent development standards, and identify opportunities to enhance team effectiveness.

Skills & Qualifications

• Expert understanding of the apparel product development lifecycle, seasonal milestones, and cross-functional development processes.
• Advanced technical knowledge of garment construction, fabric development, color science, graphic screen printing, embellishment techniques, decorative trims, packaging, and manufacturing processes.
• Demonstrated experience independently managing product development across multiple product categories from concept through production.
• Extensive experience evaluating and approving complex product development submissions and communicating technical direction directly to overseas vendors.
• Strong leadership, organizational, analytical, project management, and decision-making skills.
• Ability to anticipate development risks and implement effective solutions while balancing quality, cost, and calendar objectives.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills to collaborate with cross-functional partners.
• Understanding of Child Safety Guidelines.
• Proficiency in FlexPLM, Microsoft Office, and Adobe Illustrator preferred.
• Bachelor's degree (Product Development or related field).
• 5+ years of apparel product development or relevant industry experience.

Our Best Fit Candidate Would Have

In return, we provide an industry-competitive salary, along with a comprehensive benefits plan (medical, dental, vision) that includes a matching 401(k), Summer Fridays, generous PTO, merchandise discounts, excellent career development opportunities, and a work environment that reflects our industry leadership. Our social impact program, Centric Cares, focuses on volunteerism to make a difference in communities we live and work in and our D&I committee is shaping the future of diversity, equity and inclusion at Centric Brands through workshops, resources and inspiring conversation.

Salary Range: $90,000-$100,000

At Centric Brands, we believe our people are our greatest asset, and we structure competitive compensation offers to attract and retain the best talent. Our job postings include an annual base salary range at the time of employment. The stated base salary range represents our good faith estimate as to what candidates are likely to expect, and we tailor our offers within the range based on factors including education, experience, industry knowledge, location, and other relevant factors. Base salary is part of a total compensation package, which may also include commission earnings, annual bonus and other Centric Brands sponsored benefits.

Equal Opportunity

Centric Brands is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Please note that Centric Brands will only reach out to interview, make an offer of employment or conduct onboarding activities for candidates who have applied through our careers site. The candidate experience may include live interaction such as video conference or telephone with a Recruiter and/or company employee. We will never ask for money or payments from applicants during the recruitment process. Be aware of suspicious recruitment activity. If you think you are a victim of an employment scam, you may contact your local law enforcement or visit the Federal Trade Commission website at https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/job-scams.