Career

About Stock:


Since 2012, Stock Mfg. has designed and manufactured custom uniforms and merchandise for some of the best bars, restaurants, hotels and brands in the world. With roots in the fashion industry, we combine the latest trends with the functionality and durability you expect from workwear. We offer full service design, development and manufacturing, with a focus on innovative products and a tightly managed supply chain.


Clients include Ace Hotel, Soho House, Aparium Hotel Group, Hyatt Hotels, Lettuce Entertain You, Alinea, One-Off Hospitality, Emmer & Rye, Cresco Cannabis and Native Roots Cannabis.

Working at Stock will be fast paced and ever-changing, and your role will likely evolve with time. You will have the opportunity to work directly with the founders of the company, but an effective candidate will also operate with a lot of autonomy. You’ll also get invited to cool events and restaurant openings!


Director of Product & Production

Location: Chicago, IL
Department: Product & Operations
 Reports to: CEO
 Direct Reports: 3 (Product Developer, Production Coordinator, QC Specialist)

 

 

Role Summary

We’re looking for a highly strategic and analytical Director of Product & Production to lead the end-to-end apparel lifecycle — from forecasting and product strategy to factory management and inventory execution. This hybrid role combines some creative direction with operational excellence, ensuring that every garment aligns with brand standards, client needs, and profitability targets.

You’ll oversee our core and custom uniform programs, manage vendor relationships, negotiate costs and terms, and use data-driven insights to optimize production and inventory planning. As a key member of our leadership team, you’ll balance creativity, cost, and efficiency to deliver best-in-class product quality and service.

 

 

Key Responsibilities

🧭 Product Strategy & Line Planning

  • Define the long-term product roadmap for stocked, semi-custom, and fully custom programs.

  • Partner with sales and marketing to align product direction with client demand and brand positioning.

  • Manage SKU architecture, margin performance, and lifecycle planning.

📊 Data-Driven Inventory Planning

  • Forecast demand based on historical sales, growth targets, and seasonality.

  • Maintain ideal stock levels across core programs while managing cash flow and lead time risk.

  • Use analytics tools (Excel/Sheets, Airtable, or BI dashboards) to model purchasing and reorder decisions.

  • Present monthly reporting on inventory health, cost trends, and production performance.

🧵 Production Management

  • Oversee all factory relationships, ensuring consistent quality, pricing, and reliability.

  • Issue and track POs, manage production calendars, and monitor WIP.

  • Ensure on-time, in-full delivery of all bulk and custom orders.

  • Lead vendor negotiations on pricing, MOQs, and payment terms.

⚙️ Process Optimization & Quality Control

  • Standardize systems for forecasting, approvals, and production tracking.

  • Implement and maintain QC processes with clear pass/fail criteria and inspection procedures.

  • Identify process improvements to reduce lead times and eliminate waste.

👥 Team Leadership

  • Manage and mentor a small but growing team (Production Coordinator, Product Developer, and/or QC Specialist).

  • Build scalable workflows and documentation as the company expands.

  • Collaborate closely with leadership to balance operational discipline with creative growth.

 

 

Qualifications

  • 6+ years of experience in apparel production, product development, or supply chain management.

  • Strong analytical and Excel/Google Sheets skills; able to translate data into actionable strategy.

  • Proven experience managing vendor relationships, cost negotiations, and timelines.

  • Deep understanding of garment construction, lead times, and MOQs.

  • Experience in B2B or uniform apparel strongly preferred.

  • Familiarity with PLM, ERP, or BI systems (Airtable, NetSuite, Looker, etc.) is a plus.

 

 

Compensation (Estimated for Chicago, IL)

Base Salary Range: $100,000 – $135,000
Bonus: Variable based on performance

Final compensation will depend on experience level, technical capability, and demonstrated leadership in apparel production and planning.

 

To apply, please submit your cover letter and resume to info@stockmfgco.mom

This role is intended to grow over time.

You will not be expected to understand every part of Stock’s business or creative process on day one.

Success comes from learning quickly, developing sound judgment, taking ownership, understanding our creative standards, and progressively becoming capable of producing strong first-pass work with less direction.

The Creative Director will remain actively involved in reviewing and approving creative work. Growth in this role means arriving at that review with increasingly thoughtful, compelling, and complete solutions.

After 3 Months

You should be able to:

  • Understand how Stock approaches hospitality brands, apparel, merchandise, and presentations
  • Interpret established brand guidelines into appropriate first-pass visual directions
  • Build polished presentation pages and AI-assisted concept imagery with limited supervision
  • Contribute useful styling, color, graphic, accessory, and merchandise ideas
  • Create strong graphic-design work across presentations and supporting brand materials
  • Collaborate effectively with technical design and product development
  • Handle routine mockups, graphics, and urgent revisions when necessary
  • Demonstrate good judgment about when to ask a question and when to make a reasonable decision independently

After 6 Months

You should be able to:

  • Develop first-pass concepts for smaller uniform and merchandise programs
  • Translate client brand materials into thoughtful apparel and merchandise ideas
  • Build cohesive collections using existing styles, custom details, graphics, accessories, and selective product development
  • Help shape presentation narratives and participate actively in creative reviews
  • Create increasingly polished client presentations from relatively open-ended briefs
  • Take ownership of selected catalogs, sales materials, packaging, templates, or internal creative initiatives
  • Write clear briefs and provide useful visual direction to technical and production teammates
  • Manage smaller creative projects from initial brief through internal creative review and development support
  • Arrive at reviews with solutions rather than waiting for the Creative Director to originate every direction

After 12 Months

You should be able to:

  • Independently develop compelling first-pass client presentations and collection concepts
  • Translate a wide range of client brands into distinct, cohesive uniform and merchandise programs
  • Originate thoughtful merchandise concepts that feel contemporary, appropriate, and specific to the brand
  • Lead the creative development of selected projects through internal review with limited day-to-day direction
  • Present and defend your creative recommendations clearly
  • Respond productively to creative feedback and refine concepts without losing their underlying intent
  • Collaborate smoothly with technical design and product development to move approved concepts toward production
  • Help maintain quality and consistency across presentations, graphics, merchandise, packaging, catalogs, and brand materials
  • Recognize opportunities to improve Stock’s own creative systems and proactively help address them
  • Serve as a trusted creative collaborator capable of contributing both strong ideas and practical execution

This is not a narrowly defined design position.

You’ll work directly alongside company leadership and contribute across apparel, branding, hospitality, merchandise, graphics, AI, presentations, packaging, product development, and production.

At a larger company, many of these responsibilities might be divided among several departments. At Stock, you’ll see how an idea moves from an initial client conversation through concept development, presentation, sourcing, production, and real-world use.

You’ll also have the opportunity to help shape how our creative department develops as the company grows.

Your work may influence what employees wear at a new hotel, what merchandise is created for a major event, how a restaurant group extends its visual identity, what products Stock brings to market, or how a hospitality brand is experienced by thousands of employees and millions of guests.

The work is broad. Expectations are high. The opportunity to develop is substantial.

This role will likely appeal to someone who:

  • Has excellent taste but doesn’t need every project to reflect their personal style
  • Is genuinely interested in fashion, apparel, graphics, product, branding, and visual culture
  • Notices details and has opinions about why something looks right—or doesn’t
  • Enjoys learning how different brands, businesses, and audiences think
  • Can make something feel elevated without making it impractical
  • Understands that good design often comes from editing rather than adding
  • Can distinguish between an interesting reference and blindly following a trend
  • Enjoys receiving direct feedback and participating in honest creative discussions
  • Is resourceful and willing to figure out unfamiliar problems
  • Wants broader responsibility than they might receive at a larger organization
  • Enjoys working across several kinds of projects rather than specializing in one narrow task
  • Can move from a collection concept to a presentation to a catalog page to an urgent label revision without treating one as beneath the other
  • Wants to help build a creative department rather than simply occupy a position within one

We’re looking for builders, not spectators.

We’re looking for a versatile, hands-on Brand & Apparel Designer with exceptional visual taste, strong graphic-design skills, and the ability to adapt their creative instincts across very different brands.

This role sits at the intersection of brand design, apparel, merchandise, presentation design, and creative direction.

You’ll work directly with our Creative Director to interpret client brands, develop uniform and merchandise concepts, build cohesive collections, create polished presentations, develop graphics and branded materials, and explore how a brand can be expressed through apparel and physical products.

Some projects begin with a detailed brand book. Others begin with a logo, a property rendering, a few reference images, or a loosely defined idea. Your job is to understand what makes the brand distinctive and develop a visual and product direction that feels appropriate, compelling, contemporary, and practical.

Strong personal taste matters here—but so does range.

We are not looking for someone who applies the same aesthetic to every project. We need a visual chameleon who can move convincingly between a luxury resort, a playful event, an independent restaurant, a large hospitality group, a heritage-inspired property, and something entirely different the following week.

A major part of this role is being able to look at a brand and ask:

What should this actually look like as apparel and merchandise?

That might mean an unexpected apron treatment, a great hat, a graphic tee, a restrained co-branded label, a custom patch, a thoughtful accessory, or simply the right combination of existing garments, colors, trims, and styling.

You will be expected to develop strong first-pass ideas independently and bring a point of view to the work. Those ideas will then be reviewed and refined collaboratively with the Creative Director, who maintains final creative approval.

Over time, the goal is for you to require less direction in getting to a compelling first pass while continuing to participate in a collaborative creative-review process.

This is also a hands-on role. You’ll develop concepts, but you’ll also build presentations, create graphics, revise files, develop templates, make mockups, and occasionally help solve an urgent production need.

We don’t believe great uniform or merchandise programs begin with garments.

They begin with understanding the brand.

Every project asks different questions:

  • How should guests experience this brand?
  • How should employees feel wearing the product?
  • What visual language already exists, and how should apparel extend it?
  • What would make this collection feel specific rather than generic?
  • Where should branding be visible, and where should it be restrained?
  • Which details actually add something?
  • Can an existing garment solve the problem, or does something new need to be developed?
  • Will the idea still work after accounting for cost, manufacturing, durability, and daily use?

The right answer may be a custom garment. It may also be a familiar silhouette made specific through styling, color, materials, graphics, trims, accessories, or presentation.

We’re looking for someone who enjoys solving brand and product problems, not merely designing individual garments.

Since 2012, Stock Mfg. has designed and manufactured custom uniforms and merchandise for some of the best bars, restaurants, hotels and brands in the world. With roots in the fashion industry, we combine the latest trends with the functionality and durability you expect from workwear. 

We offer full service design, development and manufacturing, with a focus on innovative products and a tightly managed supply chain.

Clients include Hilton Hotels and Resorts, Auberge Resorts Collection, Hyatt Hotels, Lettuce Entertain You, Alinea, One-Off Hospitality, Rosewood Hotels, and The Ritz-Carlton, just to cite a few examples.

Working at Stock will be fast paced and ever-changing, and your role will likely evolve with time. You will have the opportunity to work directly with the founders of the company, but an effective candidate will also operate with a lot of autonomy. You may also get invited to cool events and restaurant openings!