Merchandise Design Manager

CatFace; Austin (TX); On-site; USD 110,000 - 160,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Excellent Medical, Dental and Vision

401(k) contribution

Flexible time off

Lunch, snacks and drinks in the office

Pets in the office once a month

Onsite fitness center

Learning Stipend

Relocation assistance for Austin

Job summary

Catface in Austin, TX is seeking a Merchandise Design Manager to lead internal content development for character-driven merchandise. You will own both the Concept Design track and the design track that delivers final artwork for production.

This creative leadership role requires setting quality gates, managing team capacity for 3–6 designers, and collaborating with Licensing, Production, Content, Merchandise Leadership, and executives to ensure timely product delivery.

Qualifications

• 8+ years in consumer product, merchandise, or packaging design, including 2+ years directing or leading designers.
• Portfolio demonstrating character driven merchandise and packaging systems, including the thinking behind them.
• Experience with product approval workflows and artwork review.
• Expert Adobe Creative Suite proficiency and knowledge of production art, dielines, and print/manufacturing requirements.
• Demonstrated ability to plan creative capacity and deliver against a development calendar.
• Comfort giving direct creative feedback and turning input into one clear direction.
• Strong presentation skills to defend a creative decision to executives.

Responsibilities

• Own creative quality, output planning, approval governance, resourcing, and team development across Merchandise Concept Design track.
• Assign work across the Concept Design team based on level, capability, workload, product category, and goals.
• Set creative quality standards and define approval gates from sketch exploration through Content and Licensing review.
• Own front-end ideation and art schedule, monitoring status, revision rounds, dependencies, and delivery risk.
• Balance internal assignments with contractor artist support and recommend resourcing when demand exceeds capacity.
• Review major concept, artwork, and packaging packages before presenting to Content, Licensing, or executives.
• Prevent incomplete or unapproved artwork from progressing downstream to vendors or production.
• Track recurring artwork errors and implement corrective training or process changes.
• Manage hiring, onboarding, coaching, and development plans for 3 to 6 designers.
• Develop craft in story translation and design development; mentor designers for more complex assignments.
• Partner with Merchandise Production, Marketing, and E-commerce on handoff and launch readiness.

Skills

Merchandise design

Staff leadership

Character merchandising

Product packaging

Adobe Creative Suite

Capacity planning

Executive presentation

Tools

Dielines

Vendor approvals

Freelance management

Job description

Catface is a YouTube entertainment company, home to a family of channels with over 25+ million combined subscribers and an average of 300 million views per month. Our goal is to entertain our audience with fun, light-hearted narratives and entertaining content for general audiences. A vital component of our business is creating multiple unique stories every week in order to keep our audience engaged.

Visit our YouTube Channels:

Aphmau Gaming

Aphmau Shuki

Aphmau Fantasy

Visit our websites:

Aphmau Store

Catface Website

About the Job

Our Merchandise team exists to take those moments, a character, a running joke, a friendship, an episode people can quote from memory and turn them into things fans can hold, wear, and display.

We're looking for a Merchandise Design Manager to join us in Austin, TX and help lead a team focused on internal content development. You'll own both halves of our creative output: the Concept Design track that turns story into product ideas, and the Design track that turns approved ideas into final artwork ready for production.

This is a creative leadership role with teeth. You'll set the quality bar, define the approval gates, manage product capacity for your team, and review the major concept, artwork, and packaging packages before they reach Content, Merchandise Leadership, or executives. You'll also own the harder half of the job: making sure we are making the right product, for the right audience, and delivered at the right time.

Capacity planning is a real part of this, not an afterthought. You'll balance internal assignments against contractor artist support, and you'll be the person who sets the pace for the team to help deliver the product on time. You'll also partner with Licensing, Production, and Executive Leadership when an approval decision gets escalated.

If you've led designers before and want a brand where the audience is enormous and passionate, the characters are genuinely loved, and the work ships at real volume, this is that job.

What You'll Do

You’ll own creative quality, output planning, approval governance, resourcing, and team development across both the Merchandise Concept Design track.

Output planning and creative standards

• Support annual, seasonal, and project level expectations for concept output, final artwork, and packaging deliverables, and align creative milestones to the product development calendar.
• Assign work across your Concept Design team based on level, capability, workload, product category, and development goals.
• Set creative quality standards and define approval gates from sketch exploration through Content and Licensing review, vendor release, sampling, and production.
• Own the front end ideation and art schedule, monitoring status, revision rounds, approval dependencies, and delivery risk.
• Balance internal assignments with contractor artist support, and recommend resourcing when demand exceeds capacity.

Review and approval governance

• Review major concept, artwork, and packaging packages before they are presented to Content, Licensing, Merchandise Leadership, or executives.
• Prevent incomplete, inaccurate, or insufficiently approved artwork from progressing downstream to vendors, sampling, or production.
• Track recurring artwork errors and put corrective training or process changes in place rather than fixing the same problem repeatedly.

Leading the team

• Manage hiring, onboarding, coaching, performance feedback, capacity assessment, and development plans for 3 to 6 designers.
• Develop craft in two directions at once: story translation and concept ideation on one side, cohesive design development across multiple product forms.
• Decide which designers are ready for more complex, more visible, or more ambiguous assignments, and give them the mentorship to succeed there.
• Partner with Merchandise Production, Marketing, and E-commerce on creative handoff and launch readiness.

What the work looks like

You and your team juggle multiple collections at once, each at a different stage, with final art deadlines defined by our annual product calendar. Expect a steady rhythm of sketch reviews, artwork reviews, sample reviews, and schedule checkpoints.

Where the role fits

You’ll report to the Director of Merchandise and sit as a peer to the Merchandise Production Manager, Licensee Merchandise Design Manager, and the E-commerce, Logistics & Customer Service Manager. The Concept Design team reports to you are focused on Internal development and events.

Your team's approved artwork hands off to Merchandise Production, who carry it through vendor development, sampling, and manufacturing, so the completeness and accuracy of what leaves your group directly affects how smoothly the product gets made. You’ll also work closely with Content, Licensing, Marketing, and E-commerce. Creative drive sits with you within the established gates and runs through executive leadership when ready; product strategy, assortment direction, licensing commitments, and budget decisions are made with or escalated to the Director of Merchandise.

What We're Looking For

Required:

• 8+ years in consumer product, merchandise, or packaging design, including 2+ years directing or leading designers.
• A portfolio demonstrating character driven merchandise, product graphics, and retail packaging systems, including the thinking behind them, not only the finished images.
• Experience with product approval workflows and corporate environment artwork review.
• Expert Adobe Creative Suite proficiency and a strong working knowledge of production art, dielines, and print and manufacturing requirements.
• Demonstrated ability to plan creative capacity and deliver against a development calendar.
• Comfort giving direct creative feedback, and the ability to turn conflicting input into one clear direction.
• Strong presentation skills: you can defend a creative decision to executives in commercial terms.
• Genuine interest in developing designs and designers, not only reviewing output.

Nice to have:

• Experience leading both concept pitches and design deliverables functions.
• Experience managing freelance rosters, external artists, or agency relationships.
• Background across plush, collectibles, apparel, accessories, stationery, and/or home décor.
• Familiarity with creator led brands, fandom driven products, or licensed entertainment merchandise.
• Genuine curiosity about the Aphmau universe, or the willingness to become a fast student of it. Story accuracy matters here as much as craft.

What We Offer

• Excellent Medical, Dental and Vision health benefits
• 401(k) contribution
• Flexible time off
• Lunch, snacks and drinks provided in the office
• Pets in the office once a month
• Onsite fitness center
• Learning Stipend
• Relocation assistance for those coming from outside Austin.