Footwear Product Development Lead

About KoobzKoobz 3D prints whole shoes in foamed TPU at our factory in Ventura, California. There are no molds and no minimums: the upper pattern is a file, and made-to-order production replaces minimum order quantities. We work with apparel brands, creators, and footwear founders who want to own their product without the tooling cost that has always kept them out. We are a seed-stage team of about 15 people. The roleThe Product Development Lead owns every Koobz shoe from customer brief to production release. You decide when a product is right, and you make sure it ships that way every time. You set the product spec, run the development timeline, own testing, and hand finished products to the factory with clear acceptance criteria. You look at every decision through one question: what does this do to the shoe on someone's foot? That includes fit, cushioning, weight, durability, and the consistency of one pair to the next. You report to the Chief Commercial Officer and work daily with our design, engineering, and factory teams in Ventura. What you'll own • Development timeline. Run every product from brief through sample rounds, design freeze, and production release. Set dates, assign owners, and resolve conflicts when projects compete for the same people.

• Product spec. Define what a good shoe is for each model and size: weight, left/right pair match, fit, cushioning response, hardness, and cosmetic standards. Turn the spec into the acceptance criteria the factory inspects against.

• Quality data and analysis. Track how production shoes perform against spec. Find the patterns in weight, yield, and defects, trace them to root causes, and drive the fixes with engineering and the factory.

• Testing. Own lab testing, wear testing, and our outside testing partners. Connect test results to what we ship.

• Production handoff. Define what "ready for production" means for each product, and confirm the factory can make it to spec before customer orders start.

• Customer feedback loop. Read first prints, customer reviews, complaints, and returns as product data, and feed what you learn back into the spec and the next round.

• Development playbook. Build and maintain the process maps, gates, and standard procedures that make development repeatable as volume grows.

First six months • 30 days: You know every active product, its stage, its owner, and its next date. You have reviewed our production quality data and named the top three product issues.

• 90 days: Every active model has a written spec with weight and pair-match limits, and the factory inspects against it. A weekly development review runs on your agenda, and every decision lands in the project tracker.

• 180 days: Products move from design freeze to production on a predictable timeline. Shoes that reach QC meet spec at a measurably higher rate than when you started, and you can show why.

Who you areRequired

• 7 or more years in footwear product development, development engineering, or product integrity at a brand or factory.

• You have taken shoes from first sample to production release and can name the specs you owned and enforced.

• Comfortable with data: you can pull production data, find what drives variation, and make a decision from it with statistical confidence.

• You run a timeline across design, engineering, and manufacturing, and you hold people to dates without needing formal authority over them.

• Hands-on with testing: mechanical, fit, and wear testing, and how to read the results.

Preferred

• Factory-side experience in Asia or with a Tier 1 supplier.

• Background in materials, polymers, cushioning, or performance testing.

• Experience with additive manufacturing or another new production process.

• Six Sigma, SPC, or design of experiments training.

Not a fit: a design or creative role, or a purely commercial or merchandising role. How you'll work with the teamWho What they bring Your part Chief Commercial Officer (your manager) Product strategy and technical guidance You own the outcome and bring decisions that need a call Commercialization lead Customer relationships and the market's voice You turn customer needs into a brief and a spec Design and engineering Design, file prep, and G-code You set priorities and dates; they do the work Factory operations Capacity, scheduling, and production You define the spec; they build to it, and you work the gaps together R&D Materials and process development You bring product problems that need new technology