footwear product development manager

Footwear product development managers coordinate the footwear design and the product and collection development process in order to comply with design specifications, deadlines, strategic requirements and policies of the company. They track style development and review design specifications in order to meet the design vision, the manufacturing environment, and the company’s financial goals.

The most in-demand skills for this role include footwear and leather goods marketing planning, health and safety in the workplace, footwear materials, footwear manufacturing technology, footwear creation process, footwear quality. These are the skills O*NET identifies as most important for competent performance.

Our AI-durability model gives footwear product development manager a score of 0.50 on a 0-1 scale (higher = more exposure). That places it at moderate AI exposure — some tasks are being automated but the role adapts. Learning to work with AI tools rather than against them is the path forward.