Product Development & Custom Projects Manager in London

Original Duckhead is a London-based, B Corp-certified design brand, best known for our distinctive premium umbrellas. We believe products for changing weather can be functional, sustainable and genuinely joyful to use. As the brand grows, our ambition is to build a distinctive product world around changing weather, with umbrellas remaining at the heart of the business. Alongside our core collections, we are growing our custom, collaboration and partnership business, while developing new products and categories.

This is a new role at Original Duckhead and an important hire for the next stage of the business. You will sit at the intersection of product, commercial and production, turning creative concepts and customer briefs into technically complete, manufacturable products. A major part of the role will be managing our growing custom and collaboration business. Our customers range from retailers and brands to cultural organisations and corporate partners. They may come to us with a fully developed concept, or simply an idea and some artwork. You will understand what is needed to bring that idea to life, identify missing information, guide the customer and internal team through the development process and translate the final brief into clear specifications for our manufacturing partners. This is not a product design role. We work with specialist designers where new product design expertise is required. Your role is to own the development process and ensure products are technically, commercially and operationally ready for production. You will also play an important role in building the systems and processes behind the function, creating a more efficient and scalable approach to product development as Original Duckhead grows.

What You'll Do

• You will manage product development from initial brief through sampling, approvals and production readiness.
• You will turn creative concepts and customer requirements into clear product specifications and factory briefs, and own day-to-day communication with our manufacturing partners throughout development.
• You will manage sampling, sample reviews, revisions and approvals, working across materials, components, trims, colours, artwork, labelling and packaging.
• You will create and maintain product specifications and technical development documentation, while working with suppliers on feasibility, costs, MOQs, lead times and manufacturing constraints.
• You will identify potential quality, technical or production issues early and recommend solutions rather than simply escalating problems.
• You will coordinate product testing and compliance requirements where relevant, maintain clear development timelines and manage multiple product developments and custom projects simultaneously.

Custom Projects and Collaborations

• You will take ownership of custom projects once an opportunity has been commercially qualified.
• Working with our commercial team and directly with customers, you will turn initial ideas into complete product briefs and identify any missing information before development begins.
• Many customers will not be familiar with the technical information required to manufacture an umbrella. You will guide them through the process, ask the right questions and translate their creative direction into clear, factory-ready specifications.
• You will manage artwork requirements, colour references, product components, labels, packaging and sampling requirements.
• You will coordinate samples and consolidate customer feedback into clear revision instructions, ensuring projects reach defined approval stages before progressing.
• You will create a smooth handover from commercial through product development and into supply chain.
• The objective is to make custom projects easier for our customers, our team and our manufacturing partners, reducing unnecessary back-and-forth and allowing us to deliver more projects efficiently.

Building the Product Development Process

We are not looking for someone simply to inherit an existing way of working. Working closely with our Founder and wider team, you will help build a more sophisticated and scalable product development function. You will develop stronger customer briefing processes, product specification templates, sample and approval workflows, development trackers, factory handovers and clear ownership between commercial, product development and supply chain. You should enjoy creating structure around complex physical product development and continually improving how things work.

About You

You have strong experience developing physical consumer products and understand how a product moves from an initial brief through sampling and into production. Your experience may come from accessories, bags, fashion accessories, outdoor products, lifestyle products, soft goods or another design-led consumer product category. You understand how products are actually manufactured and are confident communicating directly with factories and suppliers. You are highly organised, but this is not simply a project management role. You have strong product judgement and can look at an incomplete brief, identify what is missing, ask the right questions and determine what needs to happen next. You are comfortable working across creative, commercial and technical teams and can translate effectively between people who think about products very differently. You will ideally have experience across physical product development, factory and supplier management, sampling and approvals, product specifications and technical documentation, materials and components, packaging, quality and testing, costing, MOQs, lead times and managing multiple development projects. Experience working directly with customers, collaborations or custom product projects would be particularly valuable. Experience developing umbrellas is not required.

The Opportunity

Original Duckhead is at an important point in its evolution. We are growing the complexity of our umbrella business, expanding our custom and collaboration work and beginning to develop a broader product universe around changing weather. This role offers the opportunity to build an important function within the business rather than simply step into an established process. You will work closely with the Founder and have real ownership over how products move from ideas into beautifully executed physical products, helping build the product development capability that supports the next stage of Original Duckhead's growth.