Manager, Product Design – Barbie

Company Description

CREATIVITY IS OUR SUPERPOWER. It’s our heritage and it’s also our future. Because we don’t just make toys. We create innovative products and experiences that inspire fans, entertain audiences and develop children through play. Mattel is at its best when every member of our team feels respected, included, and heard—when everyone can show up as themselves and do their best work every day. We value and share an infinite range of ideas and voices that evolve and broaden our perspectives with a reach that extends into all our brands, partners, and suppliers.

The Team:
We are seeking a highly creative and innovative Manager to join our Barbie product design team. This role offers an exciting opportunity to shape the future of Barbie, one of the most iconic brands in pop culture history. We work with an equally passionate cross functional team that spans the globe, making our design-led toy company one of the best in the industry.

Job Description

The Opportunity:
The Global Product Design team is a group of passionate and inspired creatives with the goal of creating the best toys on earth! As a Barbie product design Manager, you will play a crucial role in leading the team creating fashion lines that resonate with today's diverse audience while continuing to empower and inspire the next generation of girls. Your work will not only shape the aesthetic of Barbie dolls but also reflect and promote the values of diversity, empowerment, and creativity. With the recent success of the Barbie movie, the brand has experienced a remarkable resurgence in popularity, capturing the attention of a new generation. This presents a pivotal moment to leverage the brand's cultural relevance and momentum, allowing your work to inspire and engage audiences in innovative ways. By integrating contemporary fashion trends and innovative ideas, you will contribute to making Barbie a relevant figure in today’s society, inspiring young minds through imaginative play and representation. Your work will help Barbie remain a symbol of empowerment and aspiration, driving conversations around fashion and identity in a constantly evolving cultural context.

What Your Impact Will Be: 

The Business

• You have a thorough understanding of the toy product design-development processes
  • From ideation sketches, illustrations, rough models, to final modeling and production
  • Have your finger on the pulse for the latest in fashion, graphics and toy trends
  • Have a clear understanding of the Toy industry, with familiarity of toys both past and present in the large dolls and fashion dolls categories.

• You are a strategic design thinker:
  • Able to contribute and execute on product design vision
  • Brings fresh POV with innovative design concepts
  • Understands systems of play in the dolls category
  • Build strategy around a toy line across a variety of price points and play styles
  • Solid understanding of how to design for the target consumer, influenced by kid usability and parent expectations and needs
  • Can take in feedback and commentary on projects and revise where necessary

• You are a visual designer
  • Able to create visual design language in a product that is suitable for that American Girl audience
  • Set the visual stage in color and story every season by presenting and applying trend
  • “Sweating the details” – Barbie is all about the details, from color to graphics to material finishes. You need to care about the tiniest details.
  • Understanding of how play and design work together in product to tell a story
• An excellent communicator:
  • Able to present to an audience of varying sizes both clearly and confidently
  • Can take concepts and distill them into a clear, understandable narrative to garner buy-in throughout the organization through a variety of medium
• Collaborator:
  • Work with outside licensors to build the best product. To be able to be a problem solver, partner and toy advocate. To share communication in both directions to ensure alignment across all parties.
  • Working with Mattel’s Consumer Insights team to identify opportunities, consumer needs, parent, and kid purchase behaviors
  • Partner with Mattel’s cross-function team of experts in Marketing, Packaging, and Development.
• You are nimble:
  • Able to pivot and revise on projects and strategy where business necessitates
  • Occasionally participate in design efforts outside of your area of expertise, and as your own skillset dictates
• Multi-tasker:
  • On projects with varying complexity through maximization of your design team and internal / external resources of Mattel (Internal cross function team, International Mattel partners, outside vendors)
  • Can jump in on any given situation as a hands-on manager to assist your design team

The Team

• You are a design leader
  • You manage a team of designers and empower them to grow and foster forward thinking
  • Able to form a strong business relationship with your team gaining trust through collaboration, guidance, teamwork and empathy
  • You will maximize each designers’ skill within the team and nurture their areas of opportunity
  • You will guide your team to best fulfill strategic product needs
  • You can lead but also be led
• You are a role-model
  • Lead by example and maintain professionalism, representing the core values of Mattel
  • You are passionate and inspire your design team to make toys that matter and make an impact

What Your Impact Will Be:

• Design a diverse range of toys from concept ideation through to final product development.
• Collaborate with brand managers, content creators, and licensing partners to understand brand identity, characters, and storytelling elements for compelling toy concepts and designs.
• Conduct market research and trend analysis to identify opportunities for innovative toy concepts and product extensions that resonate with fans and consumers.
• Iterate on toy designs based on internal feedback, user testing, and market insights to optimize play value, functionality, and appeal while staying true to brand essence.
• Generate creative ideas, sketches, renderings, and 3D models to visualize toy concepts and effectively communicate design vision to cross-functional teams.
• Work closely with engineers, sculptors, and manufacturers to refine designs, ensure feasibility, safety, and adherence to quality standards, and oversee the prototyping and production process.
• Stay up to date on technologies, materials, and manufacturing processes to innovate and improve toy designs while maintaining cost-effectiveness.
• Mentor junior designers to foster a culture of creativity, collaboration, and continuous learning within the design team.

Qualifications

What We're Looking For:

• 7 years+ of cross-functional experience in a product design
• Experience with premium brands and an eye for how to design premium products. 
• Collaborative and communicative team player who enjoys driving and overseeing projects and processes cross-functionally with a wide range of personalities
• Self-directed problem-solver - you're proactive in tackling new challenges and working through uncertainty
• Structured thinker who's able to develop frameworks to support strategic decisions
• On top of trends in the toy space and adjacent industries
• Strong negotiation & relationship building skills
• Must be self-motivated and able to manage multiple parallel-path projects.
• Have a passion for making great product

Additional Information

Don’t meet every single requirement? At Mattel we are dedicated to building a diverse and inclusive workplace, so if you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyway. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles.
How We Work:
We are a purpose driven company aiming to empower generations to explore the wonder of childhood and reach their full potential. We live up to our purpose employing the following behaviors:

• We collaborate: Being a part of Mattel means being part of one team with shared values and common goals. Every person counts and working closely together always brings better results. Partnership is our process and our collective capabilities is our superpower.
• We innovate: At Mattel we always aim to find new and better ways to create innovative products and experiences. No matter where you work in the organization, you can always make a difference and have real impact. We welcome new ideas and value new initiatives that challenge conventional thinking.
• We execute: We are a performance-driven company. We strive for excellence and are focused on pursuing best-in-class outcomes. We believe in accountability and ownership and know that our people are at their best when they are empowered to create and deliver results.

Our Approach to Flexible Work:

We embrace a flexible work model designed to empower a culture of growth, optimism, and wellbeing, where every employee can reach their full potential. Combining purposeful in-person collaboration with flexibility, our focus is to optimize performance and drive connection for moments that matter.

Who We Are:

Mattel is a leading global toy and family entertainment company and owner of one of the most iconic brand portfolios in the world. We engage consumers and fans through our franchise brands, including Barbie, Hot Wheels, Fisher-Price, American Girl, Thomas & Friends, UNO, Masters of the Universe, Matchbox, Monster High, MEGA and Polly Pocket, as well as other popular properties that we own or license in partnership with global entertainment companies. Our offerings include toys, content, consumer products, digital and live experiences. Our products are sold in more than 195 countries in collaboration with the world’s leading retail and ecommerce companies.

Mattel is recognized as a Great Place to Work™ and as one of Fast Company’s Best Workplaces for Innovators in 2022.
Visit us at https://jobs.mattel.com/ and www.instagram.com/MattelCareers.
Mattel is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer where we want you to bring your authentic self to work every day. We welcome all job seekers including minorities, females, veterans, military spouses, individuals with disabilities, and those of all sexual orientations and gender identities.

Videos to watch:
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