Product Development Manager in London

Location: London or Oakham / Hybrid (with travel to our factory in Morocco and third-party suppliers)

Contract type: Permanent / Full-time

Closing date for applications: 5th June 2026

The Product Development Manager is responsible for leading the end-to-end product development process for Le Chameau, from initial brief through to bulk production handover. Working closely with the team on Design, Technical Specification, Production and external manufacturing partners (including our factory in Morocco and third-party suppliers), the role ensures that every product is developed on time, to specification, at the agreed cost and to the highest quality standards.

The role owns the product critical path: managing prototypes, tooling, raw materials, samples, costing and supplier relationships, and ensuring the smooth transition from development into production. The Product Development Manager will also play a key role in establishing and embedding the new critical path development process, raising standards across briefs, reviews, sign-offs and go-to-market planning.

The role covers both day-to-day product development activity and ownership of the forward-looking critical path development process:

• Partner with the Design and Technical teams to translate creative concepts into commercially viable, manufacturable products.
• Support the Design & Development team throughout the seasonal range build, including blueprint reviews, pattern amendments and pullover reviews.
• Schedule and coordinate fittings, design reviews and factory reviews with internal teams and manufacturing partners.
• Provide administrative and technical support to the technical team to keep development on track.
• Issue Product Confirmation communications to our factory once new products are signed off and ready to progress.
• Support our factory with homologation and industrialisation of new product into bulk production.

• Own and manage the product development critical path across all product categories.
• Brief the range to our factory and third-party suppliers, including protos, last development, colour development and material development.
• Forecast SMS (sales samples), wear-trial and bulk requirements and communicate these to suppliers and internal Production Planning.
• Build and issue Tech Packs with complete and accurate specifications.
• Coordinate multiple rounds of blueprint review and amendment with Design team.
• Coordinate first and second colour dips, print reviews and print approvals through to tooling sign-off.

• Drive first proto-making and production feasibility, launch protos, and chair internal first and second prototype reviews.
• Manage proto samples, gold seals, SMS and black seals, including raising sample purchase orders and tracking the sample critical path with suppliers.
• Coordinate distribution of samples to internal stakeholders and partners.
• Manage SMS and wear-trial orders, production, delivery and distribution, and approval deadlines.
• Lead final range review and adoption meetings and communicate the adopted range to the wider business.

• Provide end-to-end, cross-departmental support on sole, last and tooling programmes across our suppliers.
• Coordinate the validation and approval of new lasts with our factory and internal teams.
• Manage the development of raw materials and components, including supplier liaison, sample requests and approvals.
• Maintain the raw material sample library and ensure it is accurate and accessible.
• Coordinate approval of bulk raw materials prior to bulk production.
• Manage wooden mold launches and mold approvals for model sizes and additional sizes.
• Sign off new components and materials and ensure required codes are created in our factory systems.