Senior Director of Product Management, Merchandising Technology

Overview Live the experience . From professional empowerment to continual learning opportunities. From ongoing investment in new and emerging technologies to a career of self-determination. At Ulta Beauty, our tech team is critical to our scalability—and is recognized that way. We’ve been defined as a “mature start-up.” A place where interdepartmental exposure, open doors, and genuine collaboration is ubiquitous. Where challenges come fast and furious, requiring agility, mental dexterity, and creativity. Where our passion for better solutions drives us and is core to who we are. We’re engineering for the future of retail, and it’s no-holds-barred. But for those motivated by continual change and ambiguity, by superior leadership, by whip smart colleagues who will press you daily for your very best, you’ll find that virtually nothing’s impossible at Ulta Beauty. The Senior Director of Product Management, Merchandising Technology is a critical leadership role within the Product organization, serving as the strategic bridge between Merchandising, Planning, Supply Chain, Finance, and Technology. This leader owns the vision, roadmap, and outcomes for the enterprise merchandising technology portfolio, including Merchandise Planning, Inventory Management, and Pricing & Promotions platforms that directly drive revenue, margin, inventory productivity, and customer experience. This role is the strategic product leader for multiple product teams responsible for delivering modern, data-driven merchandising capabilities that enable the organization to plan, buy, price, allocate, and replenish product with speed, precision, and financial discipline. The Senior Director acts as an enterprise evangelist for product-led merchandising, translating complex business strategies into scalable digital solutions that improve decision-making, optimize inventory, and accelerate time-to-market. This individual is a highly proficient business and technology leader who partners with Merchandising, Planning, Pricing, Supply Chain, Finance, and IT to drive the continuous evolution of the company’s core merchandising platforms. They will lead the identification, evaluation, and incubation of innovative solutions—including advanced analytics, AI-driven forecasting, and optimization technologies—and assess their impact through pilots and experimentation to determine enterprise-wide scalability and ROI. The Senior Director directly leads, develops, and mentors a team of Product Managers, Product Owners, and Analysts, fostering a culture of customer-centricity, data-driven prioritization, and disciplined product delivery. They ensure that teams are aligned to clear business outcomes such as GMROI, forecast accuracy, sell-through, markdown reduction, and inventory turns. The ideal candidate is a strategic, innovative product executive who can envision how modern merchandising technology enables competitive advantage, financial performance, and omnichannel excellence. This role works in close partnership with senior business leaders, engineering, data & analytics teams, and external platform vendors to define requirements, shape platform strategy, and deliver high-impact capabilities in a highly collaborative, fast-paced retail environment

CORE JOB RESPONSIBILITIES:

Own and drive a multi-year product strategy and roadmap for the merchandising technology portfolio, spanning Merchandise Financial Planning, Assortment & Item Planning, Allocation & Replenishment, Inventory Management, and Pricing & Promotions, delivering measurable improvements in revenue, margin, and inventory productivity. Prioritize, manage, and deliver multiple high-impact initiatives across planning, buying, pricing, and inventory domains, ensuring execution against business outcomes such as GMROI, sell-through, forecast accuracy, markdown optimization, and in-stock performance. Lead and govern portfolio-level product planning, translating enterprise merchandising and financial strategies into sequenced, outcome-based product roadmaps across multiple product teams and platforms. Define and own the product vision, OKRs, and performance metrics for all merchandising technology products, ensuring alignment to commercial objectives, customer experience, and operational efficiency. Diagnose complex business and technology challenges across planning, pricing, and inventory ecosystems, and drive scalable, data-driven solutions that improve decision quality and speed to market. Continuously assess the competitive and vendor landscape across retail planning, pricing, and inventory platforms, identifying opportunities to introduce differentiated capabilities and modernize the merchandising technology stack. Partner closely with Merchandising, Planning, Pricing, Supply Chain, and Finance leaders to shape future-state business processes and translate them into enabling digital capabilities. Oversee the design of end-to-end merchandising user experiences, ensuring planners, merchants, and pricing teams have intuitive, analytics-driven tools that support faster and better decisions. Set product management standards, operating models, and objectives across the merchandising portfolio, establishing consistent practices for discovery, prioritization, delivery, and value realization. Serve as the primary product leader and executive liaison for strategic merchandising technology vendors (e.g., planning, pricing, allocation, and forecasting platforms), influencing their roadmaps to align with enterprise priorities. Lead and develop multiple product teams, including Product Group Leads, Product Managers, Product Owners, and Analysts, ensuring tight alignment between business strategy, platform delivery, and measurable outcomes. Partner with Technology, Data & Analytics, and Enterprise Architecture leadership to align platform strategy, data models, and integration patterns in support of end-to-end merchandising workflows. Champion innovation across the merchandising ecosystem, including advanced analytics, AI-driven forecasting, price optimization, and automated replenishment, to continuously enhance competitive advantage and financial performance.

ADDITIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES

Stay abreast of retail, merchandising, pricing, inventory, and technology trends—including AI-driven forecasting, price optimization, and omnichannel inventory models—to identify new capabilities and inform future-state product strategy that drives incremental revenue, margin expansion, and inventory productivity. Serve as a senior thought leader and advocate for product-led merchandising transformation, championing modern planning, pricing, and inventory practices and a culture of continuous improvement across both business and technology teams. Build, scale, and develop high-performing merchandising product teams, including Product Managers, Product Owners, and Product Analysts, through disciplined hiring, structured onboarding, coaching, knowledge transfer, and ongoing performance feedback. Drive sustained product value realization across the full lifecycle, using analytics and business outcomes (e.g., forecast accuracy, sell-through, markdown reduction, in-stock rates, and margin) to continuously optimize solutions for merchants, planners, and pricing teams.

REQUIREMENTS FOR CONSIDERATION:

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Business, Merchandising, or equivalent experience 15+ years of technology or product leadership experience Experience building and growing multiple product teams that operate autonomously, while sharing responsibility for the user experience Extensive experience leading multi-year transformations in a retail environment with an emphasis on Merchandising, Inventory Management, and Product Lifecycle Management Multiple experiences successfully creating and executing against product visions, strategies, and roadmaps that achieve goals and outcomes Experience evaluating technology solutions for fit and viability against use cases Extensive experience selecting and onboarding new partner platforms & managing third party vendor relationships Exceptional at working with and analyzing user metrics and turning them into actionable insights, including the use of analytics platforms. Ability to think both strategically and tactically while being equally comfortable with long term planning and day-to-day progress tracking and execution Demonstrated experience in collaborating and communicating with technical and non-technical stakeholders across all levels. Exceptional verbal and written communication skills, including the ability to influence peer leaders & align the organization on complex decisions Strong leadership skills and the proven ability to drive organizational change Active coach and mentor whose goals are to grow and maximize the teams potential Ability to influence people over whom you do not have direct authority The pay range for this position is $201,900.00 - $260,000.00 / Year with the opportunity for eligible associates to earn additional compensation pursuant to the Company’s bonus plan. Exact pay will be based on factors including, but not limited to relevant education, qualifications, certifications, experience, level, shift, geographic location, and business and organizational needs. Full-time positions are eligible for paid time off, health, dental, vision, life and disability benefits. Part-time positions are eligible for dental, vision, life, and disability benefits. For additional information concerning our benefits, visit our Benefits and Career Development page: About At Ulta Beauty (NASDAQ: ULTA), the possibilities are beautiful. Ulta Beauty is the largest North American beauty retailer and the premier beauty destination for cosmetics, fragrance, skin care products, hair care products and salon services. We bring possibilities to life through the power of beauty each and every day in our stores and online with more than 25,000 products from approximately 500 well-established and emerging beauty brands across all categories and price points, including Ulta Beauty’s own private label. Ulta Beauty also offers a full-service salon in every store featuring—hair, skin, brow, and make-up services. We will consider for employment all qualified applicants, including those with arrest records, conviction records, or other criminal histories, in a manner consistent with the requirements of any applicable state and local laws, including the City of Los Angeles’ Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance, the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, and the New York City Fair Chance Act. #J-18808-Ljbffr Ulta