About the role
Company Overview
Catface is a YouTube entertainment company, home to a family of channels with over 25+ million combined subscribers and an average of 300 million views per month. The goal is to entertain the audience with fun, light-hearted narratives and content for general audiences. A vital component of the business is creating multiple unique stories every week to keep the audience engaged.
About the Job
The Merchandise team transforms moments, characters, running jokes, friendships, and memorable episodes into physical products for fans to hold, wear, and display. The Merchandise Design Manager will lead a team focused on internal content development, owning the Concept Design track (turning story into product ideas) and the Design track (turning approved ideas into final artwork).
This is a creative leadership role responsible for setting the quality bar, defining approval gates, managing product capacity, and reviewing major concept, artwork, and packaging packages. The role involves ensuring the right products are created for the right audience and delivered on time. Key responsibilities include balancing internal assignments against contractor artist support and partnering with Licensing, Production, and Executive Leadership.
Responsibilities
Output Planning and Creative Standards
- Support annual, seasonal, and project-level expectations for concept output, final artwork, and packaging deliverables, and align creative milestones to the product development calendar.
- Assign work across the Concept Design team based on level, capability, workload, product category, and development goals.
- Set creative quality standards and define approval gates from sketch exploration through Content and Licensing review, vendor release, sampling, and production.
- Own the front-end ideation and art schedule, monitoring status, revision rounds, approval dependencies, and delivery risk.
- Balance internal assignments with contractor artist support and recommend resourcing when demand exceeds capacity.
Review and Approval Governance
- Review major concept, artwork, and packaging packages before presentation to Content, Licensing, Merchandise Leadership, or executives.
- Prevent incomplete, inaccurate, or insufficiently approved artwork from progressing downstream to vendors, sampling, or production.
- Track recurring artwork errors and implement corrective training or process changes.
Leading the Team
- Manage hiring, onboarding, coaching, performance feedback, capacity assessment, and development plans for 3 to 6 designers.
- Develop craft in story translation/concept ideation and cohesive design development across multiple product forms.
- Determine designer readiness for complex, visible, or ambiguous assignments and provide necessary mentorship.
- Partner with Merchandise Production, Marketing, and E-commerce on creative handoff and launch readiness.
Role Positioning
- Reporting: Reports to the Director of Merchandise.
- Peers: Merchandise Production Manager, Licensee Merchandise Design Manager, and the E-commerce, Logistics & Customer Service Manager.
- Workflow: The Concept Design team reports to this role and focuses on internal development and events. Approved artwork is handed off to Merchandise Production.
Qualifications
Required
- 8+ years in consumer product, merchandise, or packaging design.
- 2+ years directing or leading designers.
- Portfolio demonstrating character-driven merchandise, product graphics, and retail packaging systems, including the thinking behind the work.
- Experience with product approval workflows and corporate environment artwork review.
- Expert Adobe Creative Suite proficiency.
- Strong working knowledge of production art, dielines, and print and manufacturing requirements.
- Demonstrated ability to plan creative capacity and deliver against a development calendar.
- Comfort giving direct creative feedback and turning conflicting input into clear direction.
- Strong presentation skills; ability to defend creative decisions to executives in commercial terms.
- Genuine interest in developing designs and designers.
Nice to have
- Experience leading both concept pitches and design deliverables functions.
- Experience managing freelance rosters, external artists, or agency relationships.
- Background across plush, collectibles, apparel, accessories, stationery, and/or home décor.
- Familiarity with creator-led brands, fandom-driven products, or licensed entertainment merchandise.
- Genuine curiosity about the Aphmau universe, or the willingness to become a fast student of it; story accuracy is essential.
Benefits and Perks
- Excellent Medical, Dental and Vision health benefits.
- 401(k) contribution.
- Flexible time off.
- Lunch, snacks and drinks provided in the office.
- Pets in the office once a month.
- Onsite fitness center.
- Learning Stipend.
- Relocation assistance for those coming from outside Austin.
Employment Details
- Location: Austin, Texas.
- Employment Type: Full-Time.
- Compensation: $90,000-$95,000.
- Minimum Experience: Manager/Supervisor.