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Designer II, Advanced Footwear Design, CMF

Seattle, United States

Who We Are:

At Brooks, we believe movement is the key to feeling more alive. That’s why we’re driven to create gear and experiences that take people to the place that makes them feel more alive — whether it’s a headspace, a feeling, or a finish line.

Everyone who works at Brooks is propelled by a company culture that sparks excitement, fuels collaboration, inspires creativity, and ignites innovation.

Our brand values help bond us together and drive our success:

Runner First

We act in the best interest of the runner

Word is Bond

We do what we say we’ll do

Champion Heart

We give our all in everything we do

There is no “I” in Run

We stay generous with our humanity

Keep Moving

We find ways to move every day, because joy is kinetic!

We welcome everyone from every walk of life looking to inspire others through the power of movement — because we’re all moving towards something. Let’s run there.

Your Job:

As a Brooks Running Designer II, Advanced Footwear Design, CMF, you will create design solutions for inline footwear projects. In this role, you will strike the balance between color, material, and finish via palettes, upper and bottom designs, and signature selections, supporting consumer story and the "fit, feel, ride" requirements of our performance-running brand identity.

In this role, you will establish and build relationships with material vendors and factories across the globe. Through your keen design expertise and understanding of trends, consumer tastes, and style preferences, you will design into componentry, materials, and style-level CMF packages to help drive aesthetic across design toolboxes to ensure individual styles meet Brooks’s Crafted Beauty quality standards. Scope of design solutions will range from future material, trim, and treatment packages to the analysis, creation, and coloration of post-process elements, details, finishes, paints, and branding executions for performance and aesthetic.

As Designer II, Advanced Footwear Design, CMF, you will work closely with the Sr. Manager, Advanced Footwear Design, CMF, and fellow designers across Inline Footwear teams, Innovation Footwear teams as well as Inline Color. You will work collaboratively with partners in Material Development, Product Development, and Product Line Management to execute pre-season, innovation, and inline CMF deliverables based on product segmentation, while maintaining brand direction, sustainability goals, and appropriate aesthetic appeal for target consumers.

You will leverage visualization and 3D tools (Blender, Substance Painter, KeyShot, or similar) to communicate CMF design intent with speed, precision, and inspiration — enabling faster, smarter, and more immersive collaboration.

Your Responsibilities:

- CMF Design, Research & Concept Development
- Research, develop, and present CMF concept direction that supports overall design strategy, emphasizing consumer storytelling and the integration of color, material, finish, surface treatments, and market trends.
- Understand and own the execution of technical design specifications including material designs, finish components, footwear uppers, and midsole geometries.
- Critique, adjust and evaluate technical designs of upper materials, branding, and components from a functional, performance, manufacturing, and aesthetic perspective.
- Leverage renderings and visualizations extensively to drive project objectives, while enabling exploration, application, execution, and key learnings.
- Respond to CMF design critique with multiple design solutions and use opportunities to influence through key decisions, milestones, and timelines.
- Finalize product details and proactively follow through on the execution of designs with Development partners using evaluation and judgement to select right courses of action.
- Continuously explore, ideate, and translate how all identity elements play together on footwear to enhance the product aesthetic.
- Collaboration & Partnerships
- Collaborate with Senior Manager and Inline Design teams on how CMF strategy, palettes, components, treatments, and designs can support leading products and seasonal stories.
- Effectively guide cross-functional partners by presenting key insights and strategies from a CMF POV with clarity, brevity, and strong visual design. Ability to demonstrate the value of research, voicing a point of view on the work.
- Be a trusted partner to the Development teams in Asia and our overseas production sites. Partner with and influence vendors and factories in the manufacturing process to support advancement and achievement of new manufacturing techniques.
- Partner with Design and Development teams to ensure that CMF designs are manufacturable and meet cost, quality, and aesthetic standards.
- Collaborate with Color, Design, and Development to focus color solutions for market success.
- Contribution & Accountability
- Provide feedback and guidance to working partners across the team.
- Seek out mentorship from more tenured Designers.
- Act as a CMF design liaison across other teams – facilitate conversations, lead by example, and show the “how”.
- Maintain and adhere to calendars and deadlines that result in a timely completion of projects—communicate to partners with ease and candor.
- Attend factory and supplier visits to gain insights and maintain a high level of understanding of the footwear manufacturing process.
- Travel as necessary to Asia, Europe, trade shows, races, retailers, or other external events.

Your Qualifications:

- Bachelor’s degree in industrial, textile, graphics, apparel or footwear design, or equivalent combination of education and/or experience.
- 5+ years of experience creating color/material/textile programs and future vision in a retail/manufacturing environment.
- Thorough knowledge of art and design with clear understanding of visual design or any design-related environment.
- Proficiency in 3D design/visualization tools (Blender, Substance Painter, KeyShot, CLO, Rhino, or similar).
- Footwear design background preferred, with knowledge of design principles, construction methods, and manufacturing processes considered highly beneficial.
- Mastery with Adobe Illustrator/Photoshop and Mac Operating system.
- Proven experience creating and leading the execution of vision and strategy.
- Ability to understand design conceptually across product categories.
- Strong knowledge of the total footwear construction process.
- Interest and ability to create unique design solutions that meet category needs and commercial opportunities.
- Ability to understand manufacturing capabilities, anticipate issues, problem solve, and find timely resolution.
- Keen attention to detail in planning, organization and execution of tasks, while still seeing the big picture and understanding how the pieces align and affect one another.
- Demonstration of innovation and initiative – always looking at improving our products and processes while also displaying a willingness to dive into the details and help out wherever necessary.
- Ability to anticipate how a decision made can affect our customers, our partners, our products, or other department operations and/or morale; “connecting the dots.
- Strong organizational and time management skills with the ability to plan, organize and execute tasks with short timelines are a must.
- Ability to meet deadlines without fail.
- Excellent interpersonal skills that inspire and build trust resulting in effective working relationships across the company (including Footwear Design, Development, PLM, Run Research).
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills, demonstrating effective listening through concise, clear verbal and written communication.
- Effective presentation comfort and skill.
- High level of independent work ethic and ability with the instinct to know when to reach out for support.
- Proficient in MS Word, Excel, Outlook, and PowerPoint.
- Travel 10% (Domestically/Internationally).
- Embraces and lives the Brooks values!

Compensation: The pay range for this position, based out of the Brooks Seattle HQ, is $102,173 -153,260 per year. Base pay offered will vary depending on job-related knowledge, skills, and experience.

Brooks is proud to offer a robust benefits package to our employees and their families!

Benefits: including medical, dental, vision, life and AD&D insurance, disability insurance, HSA and employer contribution, FSA, family & fertility assistance, 401K Savings Plan and match, employee assistance program, and transportation assistance.

Paid Time Off: Brooks offers generous time off including three to five weeks of paid time off, eleven paid holidays, paid sick and parental leave.

Bonus: in addition to base pay, Brooks employees may also be offered an annual bonus based on company performance.

Perks: including product discounts, employee recognition, fitness discounts, volunteer and donation benefits.

Location: You will spend 3 days per week in our Seattle offices, as we believe our organization flourishes when connections, collaboration, creativity, problem-solving, and celebrations happen in person.

At Brooks, we celebrate diversity & equity. We are committed to creating an inclusive environment, and encourage people of all backgrounds, perspectives, experiences, and skills to apply. Brooks is proud to be an equal employment opportunity employer. All employment decisions are made without regard to race, religion, creed, color, national origin, age, sex, gender, gender identity or expression, two-spirit identity, sexual orientation, genetic information, the presence of a physical, mental, or sensory disability, marital status, pregnancy (including childbirth and related conditions), caste, citizenship or immigration status, honorably discharged veteran or military status, actual or perceived victims of domestic violence, harassment, sexual assault or stalking, HIV or Hepatitis C infection, political ideology, use of a trained service animal by a person with a disability, or on any other basis protected by federal, state, or local law, or any other non-merit based factors.

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