About the role
Earthbound Brands is looking for a Senior Designer to lead rug design and shape trend direction across our home businesses at Walmart. You'll lead our rug program from a design perspective, which is designed almost entirely in house and includes area rugs, runners, and door mats. You'll also guide curtain development with our supplier partners and manage a Junior Designer who handles pillows. About 70% of the role is hands-on product design and 30% is trend research and direction.
You'll design across 2-3 brands in each category, so you'll need to adapt your aesthetic and turn one trend story into distinct brand expressions. You'll work in close partnership with a dedicated Product Development counterpart in Bentonville, AR, balancing creative vision with sales performance and retail realities.
This role suits a designer with deep rug expertise who can move easily between original artwork, technical specs, and working with suppliers. You should be ready to grow and develop a direct report.
What you'll do
Rug design (core expertise)
- Create original rug collections (area rugs, runners, door mats) from concept to production-ready artwork for Walmart.
- Develop distinct design approaches for each brand in the assortment, keeping each brand's identity clear while sharing efficient development across the program.
- Build line plans and assortments that balance trend, price point, and construction feasibility.
- With support from Print and pattern team, develop CADs, colorways, repeats, and scaled artwork for each construction. Prepare design sheets and supplier RFQ’s with construction, pile height, fiber, sizing, and finish details.
- Curate and edit supplier-developed traditional and Persian-style designs so they fit the overall assortment.
- Partner with Product Development and suppliers on costing, feasibility, sampling, and production timelines.
Window (curtains)
- Co-create fabric curtain collections with supplier partners. Give design direction, review supplier concepts, and refine pattern, color, and fabrication so the line stays consistent with the broader soft home story.
Pillows (through your junior Designer)
- Manage and mentor a junior Designer responsible for decorative pillows. Review work, set priorities, give regular feedback, and support their growth.
- Make sure pillows connect to rugs and window through shared color, pattern, and trend direction.
Trend (~30%)
- Research and interpret trends in color, pattern, material, and lifestyle through market shopping, trade shows, and trend services.
- Support Director in creation of seasonal trend and color direction for soft home.
- Translate trend insight into commercial product direction tailored to each brand's language and customer.
Cross-functional partnership
- Build a strong, candid working relationship with your Product Development counterpart in Bentonville. Collaborate daily across locations on design, development, costing, and timelines.
- Bring design point of view to commercial discussions, and use sales data, retail feedback, and cost targets to sharpen your work instead of treating them as limits.
- Resolve most disagreements directly with your PD partner through open, data-informed discussion, and use the escalation process constructively when a decision needs a broader business view.
What you bring
- Strong technical knowledge of rug construction, such as power-loomed/machine-made, hand-tufted, hand-hooked, flatweave, natural fiber, printed/washable, and indoor-outdoor. Familiarity with doormat constructions (coir, rubber-backed, printed) is a plus.
- 5-7+ years of home textile design experience, including at least 3 years designing rugs at a rug manufacturer, importer, retailer, or design studio.
- A portfolio showing original rug design that went into production, designed for at least two distinct brands or retail customers.
- A track record of researching and interpreting trends in color, pattern, material, and lifestyle (through market shopping, trade shows, and trend services such as WGSN) and turning them into commercial products.
- Evidence of contributing to seasonal concept or color direction, such as trend boards or storyboards, is a plus.
- Proven ability to adapt your aesthetic across multiple brands while keeping each brand's identity clear.
- Expert skills in Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. Experience with rug CAD software (e.g., Galaincha or NedGraphics) is strongly preferred.
- Working knowledge of decorative pillows and home textiles.
- Experience working with overseas suppliers on development, sampling, and color approval.
- Experience partnering with product development, merchandising, or sourcing teams, ideally across locations.
- Commercial awareness: an understanding of price points, sell-through, and how retail feedback should shape design decisions.
- Experience supervising or mentoring junior designers. Formal management experience is a plus.
- Strong color sense, attention to detail, and the ability to explain design choices clearly to commercial partners.
Nice to have
- Comfort using AI tools (e.g., ChatGPT) to speed up visualization, such as quick renders and colorway or material exploration, alongside traditional design tools.
Deep rug design and construction expertise is essential for this role. We'll support growth in trend and presentation skills.
