Senior Designer, Toys

Senior Toy Designer Comfrt is a rapidly growing lifestyle brand built around comfort, emotional well-being, and creating products that make people feel good. Known for our innovative approach to comfort, we're expanding beyond apparel and home into exciting new categories that bring our brand mission to life. We're looking for an exceptional Senior Designer, Toys to help build our newest product category from the ground up. Our vision is to create toys that spark joy, evoke nostalgia, inspire playfulness, and deliver the signature comfort our customers love. From irresistibly soft plush characters and tactile sensory toys to weighted companions and unexpected novelty products, we want to create products that people connect with emotionally. This is an exciting opportunity to help shape a new category within a fast-growing brand, with significant potential for growth, creativity, and category ownership. About the Role: We're seeking a highly creative, commercially minded, and hands-on Senior Toy Designer with deep experience designing and developing successful consumer products. The ideal candidate brings 8–10+ years of relevant industry experience, ideally from an established toy brand or a high-growth company that has successfully scaled its product assortment and distribution. You are someone who is deeply passionate about creating innovative toys, pushing the boundaries of play, and combining fresh ideas with thoughtful details and distinctive design. You understand what makes a toy irresistible: the personality, the texture, the materials, the colors, the unexpected details, and the emotional connection. You're especially excited by the opportunity to design products that do more than entertain—products that can ease stress and anxiety, support calming routines, and contribute to mental well-being through comforting sensory experiences. You know how to transform an imaginative idea into a commercially successful, production-ready product while preserving the details that make it feel special. We're looking for someone who is passionate about toys, driven by innovation, moves quickly, thrives in ambiguity, and takes full ownership of their work. You'll need to be equally comfortable generating original concepts, creating detailed technical packages, collaborating with overseas manufacturers, and driving multiple projects through development. This is a hands-on design role, ideal for someone who loves creating products, believes in the power of thoughtful design to support emotional wellness, and wants to help build something new. Key Responsibilities: Creative Direction & Concept Development Lead creative design and concept development for Comfrt's expanding toy category. Develop original, playful, nostalgic, and emotionally engaging toy concepts that reflect Comfrt's brand identity. Create new characters, shapes, silhouettes, expressions, textures, and interactive features that differentiate our products in the marketplace. Explore multiple toy categories, including plush, weighted toys, sensory toys, squishies, novelty toys, collectibles, and comfort-focused companions. Develop compelling character personalities, stories, and distinctive design details that create emotional connections with consumers. Translate consumer insights, emerging trends, and market opportunities into original, commercially viable product concepts. Present creative direction through mood boards, hand sketches, digital illustrations, renderings, material boards, and physical prototypes. Establish cohesive design languages and recognizable product families with opportunities for expansion and collectibility. Balance originality and playfulness with commercial appeal, functionality, and brand consistency. Product Design & Technical Development Own the end-to-end design process, from initial concept through production-ready design approval. Create detailed, accurate technical packages with measurements, construction details, materials, trims, colors, artwork, and manufacturing specifications. Develop technical illustrations, multi-view drawings, product specifications, and detailed construction instructions for factories. Design and develop plush patterns, soft sculptures, dimensional forms, and other toy constructions in partnership with technical and manufacturing teams. Specify fabrications, fillings, weights, textures, sensory components, embroidery, prints, attachments, and functional features. Develop innovative tactile and sensory experiences through thoughtful material and construction choices. Research and introduce new materials, manufacturing techniques, and product innovations. Work directly with manufacturers to translate concepts into successful physical samples. Review and evaluate prototypes for aesthetics, hand feel, construction, functionality, durability, and overall execution. Provide clear, actionable sample comments and revisions to achieve design intent efficiently. Ensure final products maintain strong design integrity while meeting commercial cost targets and production requirements. Strong understanding of toy safety standards and protocols, implementing into designs. Partner with Product Development, Sourcing, and Quality teams to ensure designs meet applicable toy safety, testing, and regulatory requirements. Trend Research & Product Innovation Stay deeply connected to the toy industry, social trends, including emerging brands, character trends, collectibles, sensory products, and consumer behavior. Monitor trends across toys, entertainment, pop culture, lifestyle, and adjacent categories. Identify whitespace opportunities and product concepts that can resonate with both kids and adults. Bring forward fresh ideas and unexpected product features that create excitement and differentiation. Understand what drives viral toy trends, emotional attachment, collectibility, repeat purchasing, and gifting. Leverage competitive research while ensuring Comfrt develops original and distinctive products. Continuously explore innovations in materials, functionality, and tactile experiences. Cross-Functional Collaboration & Execution Partner closely with Product leadership to establish product direction, priorities, and seasonal assortments. Collaborate with Product Development, Sourcing, Merchandising, Marketing, and Quality teams throughout the product lifecycle. Work directly with domestic and overseas suppliers to resolve design challenges, review samples, and accelerate development. Manage multiple design projects simultaneously while meeting aggressive development timelines. Proactively identify potential development challenges and recommend practical solutions. Maintain organized, accurate design documentation, technical packages, and sample approvals. Communicate progress, priorities, and challenges clearly across a remote, cross-functional team. Incorporate feedback quickly while maintaining strong creative judgment and ownership of the final product. Qualifications: Required Experience 8–10+ years of professional experience in toy design, plush design, character product design, or highly relevant adjacent categories. Must have experience at an established toy-relevant brand or consumer product company that has successfully scaled its business, product assortment, and distribution. Proven experience designing commercially successful toys or character-driven consumer products. Demonstrated experience taking original concepts from ideation through factory development and production. Strong understanding of toy design, construction, materials, manufacturing processes, and technical development. Advanced skills in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, with strong digital sketching, illustration, and rendering capabilities. Strong proficiency in creating comprehensive technical design packages for manufacturing. Experience working directly with overseas factories and managing multiple sample iterations. Familiarity with toy safety standards, material performance, testing considerations, and age-appropriate design. Strong understanding of cost-conscious design and designing for scalable manufacturing. Portfolio demonstrating outstanding creativity, strong character development, original concepts, and successful commercial products. Strong communicator and presentation skills, ability to influence and inspire cross functional partners and leadership. Maintains composure, manages emotions appropriately, and handles ambiguity, changing priorities, and differing opinions with confidence and professionalism. Exceptional collaborator. Builds strong, trusting relationships across cross-functional teams, communicates openly, and works effectively with diverse personalities and perspectives. Combines imaginative, right-brain creativity with left-brain organization, problem-solving, strategic thinking, and disciplined execution. Experience working in a fast-paced, entrepreneurial, or high-growth consumer brand environment. Proven ability to work effectively and independently in a remote environment. Highly Preferred Background Experience with recognized toy, plush, collectible, or character-driven brands. Background in developing sensory, squishy, weighted, comfort-focused, or Comfrt