Designer II, Converse Womens Footwear

ABOUT CONVERSE

Are you interested in working for the most iconic and well-loved sneaker brand in the world? Born in sports and made for the street, Converse is a place to explore your potential, obliterate boundaries and push out the edges of what can be. We seek people who can lead, grow, think, dream, and create. Our culture thrives by embracing diversity and rewarding imagination. Converse seeks achievers, leaders, and visionaries. At Converse, it’s about each person bringing their authentic self, skills, and passion to serve the daring spirit of youth.

ABOUT OUR TEAM

Become part of the Converse Team

Converse is a place where you can be at work AND be yourself. It’s a place to be creative, to come up with cool new ideas and to work with a friendly and welcoming team. At Converse, it’s about each person bringing skills and passion to a challenging and constantly evolving world to make things better as a team.

The Product Creation team has a one-team mentality across a multitude of specialties - Trend and Concept, Footwear Design, Merchandising, Product Development and Business Operations - collectively driven to deliver the Converse consumers with the best products possible and advance the independent spirit of youth.   

WHO WE ARE LOOKING FOR

We’re looking for a Footwear Designer for the Global Womens Footwear team (level: Designer 2). The person who fills this role will be a key player on our team – delivering design solutions for Women’s ranging from footwear new creation to advanced color and material concepts.

The ideal candidate is a fashion obsessed, creative problem solver who’s ready and willing to work in a team environment. In this role they will be responsible for a portion of the team’s design work which fluctuates by season and need. We’re looking for someone who has their finger on the pulse of youth culture and a strong ability to deliver innovative design solutions on a spectrum of commercial to energetic that inspires our trend leading Women’s consumer – including applying color, material and graphics as well as developing intricate trim and novelty details for our icons.  

WHAT YOU WILL WORK ON

If this ideal candidate is you, you’ll be working closely with our Women’s Design Director, the Women’s Design Team and other functions such as product merchandisers and developers to create a line of progressive Womens footwear four seasons per year. You’ll be receiving and interpreting briefs, coming up with creative solutions that hit the brief, sharing your ideas via drawings, presentations and mood boards and working to make those solutions a reality through Illustrator documents, material exploration and responsible costing.  

Most days involve self-directed design with check-ins as needed with various team members. Your typical day is a mix of creative design ideation, designing new creation and seasonal collections, and creating the technical specifications to hand off to our Development Team to prepare product for manufacturing. You need to be able to direct your own workflow to a certain extent and will need to be a proactive, organized and goal-oriented designer, but you will always have the support you want and need from your director and your teammates.  

WHO YOU WILL WORK WITH

You will be reporting to the Senior Designer on Women’s and you will be close teammates with them and the rest of the Inline Design Team. You will be working cross-functionally with the Womens triad, made up of Product Merchants (responsible for the business, building briefs and merchandising the line) and the Development Team (responsible for creating technically sound and manufacturable footwear). We work as one team where everyone’s voice is respected, and we work together toward shared goals. Outside of that we also get trend and creative direction from the Trend team and the Creative Director, work with other designers across categories, and have several all-design events and milestones.

WHAT YOU BRING 

Design Requirements: 

• Bachelor’s degree in product design or relevant design degree or combination of relevant education, experience, and training.  

• At least  3-4 years experience designing and developing lifestyle focused footwear with an emphasis on fashion.

• Knowledge of form, color, materials, human factors, related to elevating the Women’s consumer experience. 

• Passion for Women’s fashion, Runway, Sport and Youth Culture 

• Previous footwear design experience preferred

• Strong Photoshop, Illustrator skills 

• Must be able to create accurate 2D technical drawings for material development and activations.

• Strong sketching, illustration, and rendering skills 

• Knowledge of footwear material, trim details and hardware development preferred. As well as knowledge of footwear manufacturing and development.

• Must be able to generate a broad range of concepts and solutions for each project on a scale of mild to wild.

• Cobbling and prototyping skills are a plus 

• Experienced with presentation programs: Keynote, Powerpoint, Acrobat, etc. 

We offer a number of accommodations to complete our interview process including screen readers, sign language interpreters, accessible and single location for in-person interviews, closed captioning, and other reasonable modifications as needed. If you discover, as you navigate our application process, that you need assistance or an accommodation due to a disability, please complete the Candidate Accommodation Request Form.