Director of Product Development

About Branch Branch is shaking up the $46B office furniture industry to create an office experience for the 21st century : easy, affordable and flexible so you can sit down (or stand) and get to work.

Office furniture hasn't changed in a while about 85 years, in fact. That's the average age of the top twenty-five office furniture companies in America.

None of them were born after the Internet. Branch makes beautiful and supportive work products for enterprises and home offices, too.

Our mission extends beyond furniture into health, productivity and more. We're based in NYC and backed by the investors behind household brands like Quip, Caraway and Peloton.

Our founders arrive with experience in partnerships, real estate acquisitions and venture building at leading real estate companies like Oxford Properties, SL Green and Redfin.

We’re an ambitious group of problem solvers innovating across software, design and logistics, and we’re looking for entrepreneurial teammates who like a challenge.

The Role We are looking for a Director of Product Development to grow our product portfolio with the highest level of quality and user experience.

You’ll lead the development, launch, and ongoing improvements of beautiful, functional, and accessible office products for our consumer, enterprise, and wholesale business lines.

As the key catalyst for the furniture design team, you will be responsible for translating furniture designs into finished, shippable products.

The ideal candidate has a deep appreciation for physical products and blends expert process management with technical problem solving skills throughout development, production, and continuous improvement activities.

You enjoy working at the portfolio level, delving into details, and communicating with internal and external teams, often all in the same day.

In your first ninety days at Branch, you will ramp up and ultimately own the development of all new and continuous improvement projects in motion.

Working closely with the furniture team project manager, and in collaboration with cross-functional teams, you will build, orchestrate, and share critical processes, project updates, timelines, actions, and blockers.

You will understand our processes inside and out and provide compelling strategies to launch more products smoothly and quickly.

This is an incredible opportunity to build the product development function at a category-defining, well-funded, and rapidly-growing startup.

If you're truly passionate about exceptional product development and want to improve the objects that our customers interact with for eight-plus hours a day, we’d love to meet you.

Day To Day Quarterback the Furniture Team : Working closely with the Head of Furniture Design, expertly manage project timing, deadlines, resources, and conflicting priorities to prevent blockers and maximize team efficiency and agility.

Lead Development of Exceptional Furniture Projects End-to-End : Author new project briefs, guide teams from final design to product development, proactively solve development issues, ensure project unit economics are viable, establish quality standards, complete compliance testing, cleary document final specifications, orchestrate cross-functional deliverables leading up to first production, and consistently conduct project retrospective meetings to learn and improve.

Evolve and Maintain Management Tools : Work closely with your PM direct report to continue evolving, maintaining, and authoring a nimble set of management tools to actively track our phase / gate process across all projects while balancing team bandwidth.

Collaborate with cross-functional leads to provide status updates on the end-to-end development calendar. Manage Product Business Economics : Develop efficient and effective tools for managing supplier quotes, product costs, logistics, and more.

Lead the processes that enable timely decision-making by the Branch leadership team. Partner with Domestic and International Teams : Identify sourcing needs, validate potential partners, and help Branch build a best-in-class supply chain.

Establish quality standards for all new projects and assist in their implementation before mass production to ensure consistent, high-quality output.

Support Beyond Physical Products : Lead and support initiatives beyond our physical product line, including best-in-class packaging design, ongoing process development, and new product and continuous improvement merchandising strategies.

What We’re Looking For 5-10+ years of experience at a design-led product company or product development consultancy, ideally in the furniture space.

Proven experience developing and shipping exceptional products that users love. Superlative attention to every aspect of a product (ergonomics, dimensions, materials, finishes, weight, packaging, costs) combined with the ability to accurately manage these details and their associated specifications.

Passion for creating goals, defining processes, implementing quality standards, producing clear documentation, and reporting to a variety of cross-functional team members;

you make genius repeatable. Proven experience and working knowledge of materials, processes, manufacturing, specifications, tolerances, and the benefits of BOMs, SOPs, ECOs, and PLM systems.

Experience with both domestic and international suppliers, ideally in the furniture industry. Experience with quality assurance standards, product testing and compliance requirements, and the ability to review and understand technical engineering drawings to support design and engineering activities.

Experience working with Operations and Forecasting teams to gauge SKU performance and identify optimization opportunities.

Experience conducting market research to stay abreast of industry trends, customer preferences, and competitive products;

utilizing customer feedback and insights to inform product development decisions and improve offerings. Exceptional written and verbal communication.

An entrepreneurial mindset with a strong bias for action and a thirst to learn. Branch is proud to be an equal opportunity employer that celebrates individuality and uniqueness.

We firmly believe that diverse perspectives, backgrounds, and experiences fuel innovation and creativity, ultimately making us a stronger and more effective team.

Our goal is to create a nurturing environment where all individuals are respected, appreciated, and empowered to achieve their utmost potential while being their true authentic self.

Branch is committed to providing reasonable accommodations to ensure our selection process is equitable, and such accommodations can be made available on request.

If you require an accommodation, please contact [email protected]. Powered by JazzHR