Materials Designer 1, Footwear

Your Opportunity at ARC’TERYX:   As a Materials Designer 1, you collaborate with the Footwear Design team to create and implement the Arc’teryx Footwear Material Design strategy. You work closely with Design, Development and Product Line Management teams to bring material creations to life. You support Footwear Materials leadership to deliver inline materials by leveraging mountain athlete insights, executing the seasonal materials direction, creating tech packs, materials briefs and material maps.   This role is based out of our Portland office and is expected to be performed onsite.    Meet Your Future Team:   The Arc’teryx team creates innovative, beautiful product that exceeds the core mountain athlete’s needs in the outdoors across climbing, hiking, and trail running categories. We are builders, problem solvers and passionate outdoor enthusiasts. Fueled by curiosity, we take an immersive approach to identifying our athlete’s future needs then build, test, and validate products that solve for real functional challenges. We are a passionate collective with a focus on collaborative teamwork, and our vision is to redefine the industry.  If you were in the Materials Designer 1 role now, here are some of the core activities you would be doing:

Supporting, ideating, communicating on and implementing unique footwear materials solves that address durability, performance, circularity, and impact 

Driving materials design excellence by leveraging performance and usage feedback from the mountain athlete 

Supporting the execution and commercialization of innovative seasonal materials 

Supporting the creation of an evergreen materials palette in collaboration with the Raw Materials Development team; articulating a common language and tiers 

Utilizing materials testing methodology to deliver best-in-class materials that solve problems for the mountain athlete 

Supporting in the exploration of sustainable materials in evergreen and seasonal materials palettes 

Partnering with the Raw Materials Development team to refine and expand our supplier base, informed by Arc’teryx focused performance and quality needs 

Collaborating with cross-functional teams to meet calendar gates and product milestones 

Updating physical and digital materials libraries for Arc’teryx footwear 

Researching and bringing insights and materials trends from other industries 

Preparing presentations for seasonal material concepts 

Working with Footwear Product Development and Raw Materials Development teams to revise and refine materials through prototyping stage gates 

Partnering with the Marketing team to translate athlete insights and needs into tangible narratives 

Traveling to Asia for supplier and factory visits and to the Arc’teryx Design Center in North Vancouver, BC for design collaborations and team building 

Here are some of the things you could be working on in the future:

You have a Degree in Design (Apparel, Industrial, or Textile Design) 

You have 1-2 years hands-on experience designing technical materials with a focus on footwear 

You are technically proficient using the Adobe Suite, or the equivalent pattern software 

You have a proficient understanding of the footwear and/or product design creation process and understand technical textiles, knits, woven, natural and synthetic materials 

You have the capability to create tools and methods to assist in solving construction issues 

You have experience working with material suppliers 

You are an excellent team player with the ability to take direction and work independently 

You have technical and creative skills to pattern and prototype 

You are entrepreneurial and innovative 

You have strong planning, organizational, problem solving and decision-making skills 

You are proactive in identifying the root cause of issues, seeking the best (sometimes not the easiest) solutions with an unwavering commitment to do what is right 

You remain highly flexible and adaptable when faced with ambiguity 

You can balance autonomy and collaboration 

You inspire breakthrough thinking and continuous improvement 

Your passion for your work is paralleled by your passion for getting outside and living it 

You have a strong knowledge of Arc’teryx products and interest/involvement in activities Arc’teryx makes products for