Do you want a job at a shoe factory?  Not really.  You want a job at a company that designs, markets and sell shoes! You want to work for a brand like Nike, Adidas, Etnies, Vans or DC shoes.  

So what kinds of jobs can I get and what do I need to know?  There are many shoe making jobs to be had without actually sitting in front of a sewing machine in south China.  I’m going to list a few of the common jobs you would find in a typical shoe development office. 

Shoe Designers:

Duh! Someone has to draw the shoes. Depending on who you ask this is the easiest part of the hardest.  The design has to draw what people want on their feet. Hmm..

To be a shoe design art school would be a great help. A degree in Industrial or Product design is a great place to start.  But that said if you can really draw like a bandit who needs higher education.  The designers draw the shoes them work with the shoe developers to

make the prototypes just right.  Picking color trends and knowing what is cool are critical skills.

Shoe Developers:

Not a designer but critical to getting the shoes made. It’s the developers job to take a nice drawing and make it into a real shoe you can wear on your feet.  The developer is the guy that writes the technical specifications, checks the blue prints and communicates with the shoe factory.

The developers job is to get the shoe made and keep the free thinking designers from making a beautiful shoe that is cruel to wear.  They are the shoe prototype engineers and schedule keepers.  To be a developer you may start as a designer or, an intern or assistant.

Product managers or Product line Managers:

The Product manger or “PM” is the person that sets designer and developer in motion.  It’s the PM’s job to figure out what to make.  The PM will tell the designer what kind of shoe to make.  PM’s responsibility is to work with the sales team and customers to find out what they need.  The PM is also tasked with looking forward.  What will people need next year?  What color shoes will be trending.

Sample Coordinator:

A busy development office will have hundreds of shoes coming and going.  The sample Coordinator is the traffic cop that tracks where the shoes are.  Are the sample stills in China? When is the factory doing to ship? Does Fed-Ex need more paperwork to manage the import?  The sample coordinator position is a great entry level position for learning the operations of shoe development.