Product Innovation Associate
Location: San Diego, CA
Length: 2-month contract
Pay: $35/hr - $40/hr (DOE)

The Product Innovation Associate is a next-gen product development role, that provides essential support in bringing new product ideas from early concept through commercialization. This role supports the Product Innovation Manager and owns the end-to-end development of smaller categories and curated product programs--bringing strategy, newness, and innovation to life from concept through commercialization.
Acting as a cross-functional connector, the Product Innovation Associate ensures product concepts move with speed, accuracy, and consumer-obsessed execution across merchandising, product design, sourcing, supply chain, packaging, brand marketing, and QA. This role translates insights and trends into actionable briefs, drives timelines, tracks deliverables, and ensures every item lands on-time, on-trend, and on-margin Key Responsibilities End-to-End Product Creation & Execution * Manage the full lifecycle of assigned categories and programs--from concept alignment and design handoff through costing, sampling, testing, packaging, and production readiness.

Qualifications:

• 3-5 years' experience in Product Development, Product Design, Trend/Fashion Research, Merchandising, or related consumer product field.
• Experience in retail, private label, pet, home, lifestyle, or CPG preferred.
• Demonstrated interest in product design and consumer trends.
• Comfortable with visual tools (Adobe, Canva, PowerPoint, or equivalent).
• Strong organizational skills; able to manage multiple workstreams simultaneously.
• Clear communicator; able to partner across creative and operational teams.

• Maintain development trackers, timelines, and milestone calendars to ensure products move with speed and discipline.
• Facilitate quick decisions, escalate roadblocks early, and support cross-functional partners in meeting deliverables.
• Partner with sourcing to support costing rounds, vendor communication, sample reviews, and feasibility assessments.
• Strategy & Consumer Insights
  • Bring a trend-forward lens to product creation by gathering competitive insights, cultural signals, and category trends.
  • Support the development of assortment strategies and line architecture for smaller categories, ensuring a steady pipeline of newness and innovation.
  • Translate trend, consumer, and category opportunities into clear briefs and design/packaging inputs.

• Cross-Functional Partnership
  • Serve as the connective tissue across merchandising, sourcing, product design, packaging, supply chain, QA, and brand marketing.
  • Facilitate alignment meetings, track decisions, and ensure partners have what they need to move programs forward.
  • Support packaging teams with claims, copy, size/variant lists, and packaging inputs required for brief creation.
  • Partner with supply chain to ensure timelines, MOQ considerations, and delivery execution are achievable.
  • Collaborate with brand marketing to bring newness to life across digital, social, and store environments.

• Operational Excellence
  • Maintain accurate product data, documentation, and item attributes.
  • Support testing and compliance processes by coordinating test submissions and tracking results.
  • Prepare product samples and information for key meetings (line reviews, leadership updates, milestone gates, etc.).
  • Own smaller process improvements that support speed, quality, and cross-functional clarity.

• Success Profile
  • Trend-curious, culturally aware, and excited by product innovation
  • Highly organized, detail-driven, and committed to operational excellence
  • Collaborative, proactive, and able to influence cross-functional partners
  • Comfortable working in a fast-paced environment with evolving priorities
  • Strong communicator who can simplify complexity and drive alignment 
  • On-time delivery of category programs and milestones
  • Post launch product performance (sell-through, margin, customer feedback)
  • Quality of briefs, trackers, and cross-functional documentation
  • Speed of decision-making and issue resolution
  • Cross-functional partner satisfaction and trust in the process
  • Contribution to newness pipeline and category innovation