Principal Product Manager - Inventory Management

Williams-Sonoma · San Francisco

About the Team

You will be a key member of the Supply Chain Product Management team responsible for improving how Williams-Sonoma, Inc. plans, forecasts, allocates, replenishes, and manages inventory across brands, channels, categories, and fulfillment nodes. The team partners closely with Merchandising, Inventory Management, Planning, Allocation, Replenishment, Supply Chain, Stores, eCommerce, Finance, Analytics, and Technology to deliver scalable product capabilities that improve business planning, inventory productivity, forecast accuracy, in-stock performance, operational efficiency, and customer experience.

About the Role
Williams-Sonoma, Inc. is in the business of enhancing the quality of our customers’ lives at home. This Principal Product Manager role will be focused on driving product strategy and execution across core inventory management and planning capabilities, including Merch Financial Planning, Demand Forecasting, Assortment Planning, Allocation, Replenishment, and Inventory Optimization.

This role will help define and deliver capabilities that improve how the business plans demand, builds assortments, manages inventory investments, allocates product, replenishes inventory, and responds to changing customer, channel, and supply chain conditions. The right candidate will bring deep retail planning and inventory management experience, strong product management discipline, and the ability to translate complex business processes into scalable technology-enabled products and capabilities.

This role requires a product leader who can operate across strategy and execution: framing business opportunities, shaping roadmaps, aligning stakeholders, defining product requirements, evaluating solution alternatives, partnering with engineering and analytics teams, and ensuring delivered capabilities create measurable business value. Product strategy should start with the business problem, desired outcomes, and required capabilities rather than a predetermined technology solution.

Responsibilities

Own the product lifecycle for inventory management from ideation through adoption, continuously measuring business outcomes, incorporating customer and stakeholder feedback, and evolving the product roadmap to maximize business value.
Drive the adoption of AI, machine learning, automation, and decision-support capabilities to improve planning quality, accelerate product delivery, reduce manual effort, and enable smarter business decision making. Partner with Analytics and Engineering teams to identify, prioritize, and deliver high-value AI use cases across the Inventory Management domain.
Leverage generative AI and modern product management tools to improve product discovery, requirements development, backlog quality, documentation, and team productivity while championing responsible AI adoption across the product domain.
Lead end-to-end product discovery by partnering with business stakeholders to define strategy, prioritize opportunities, and translate business needs into product roadmaps, epics, user stories, acceptance criteria, and measurable outcomes.
Partner with Engineering, Architecture, Analytics, and Program Management to execute product roadmaps, manage tradeoffs and dependencies, and deliver high-quality capabilities through Agile delivery.
Lead product strategy across demand forecasting, assortment planning, merch financial planning, allocation, replenishment, and inventory optimization to improve forecast accuracy, inventory productivity, service levels, and financial performance.
Advance merch financial planning capabilities that improve visibility into inventory investments, sales, margin, receipts, turn, open-to-buy, and related financial planning metrics.
Drive allocation and replenishment capabilities that improve product placement, inventory availability, inventory productivity, sell-through, and customer fulfillment outcomes.
Identify and prioritize opportunities to reduce manual work, spreadsheet dependency, process fragmentation, and operational friction across planning and inventory workflows.
Partner with Analytics and Technology teams to deliver advanced forecasting, optimization, decision-support, and automation capabilities through the most appropriate combination of internally developed products, commercial Inventory Management packaged solutions, platform extensions, data products, and other technology approaches.
Define product success metrics and measurement plans tied to forecast accuracy, in-stock performance, inventory productivity, sell-through, margin, planning cycle time, adoption, exception reduction, and operational efficiency.
Provide clear recommendations on roadmap priorities, sequencing, tradeoffs, dependencies, risks, solution alternatives, and value realization to business partners and senior Technology leadership.
Support organizational change management for new planning and inventory capabilities, including stakeholder alignment, process documentation, training, UAT, readiness, hyper-care, and adoption tracking.
Establish and maintain strong product management practices and documentation across Jira, Confluence, and related product management tools to improve backlog quality, transparency, knowledge sharing, and team productivity.
Ensure product capabilities are designed with appropriate controls, data quality, role-based access, audit considerations, and operational governance.
Remain current with retail, supply chain, planning, forecasting, allocation, replenishment, AI, and inventory optimization trends, and apply relevant external practices to WSI’s product strategy.

Criteria

10+ years of related experience in Product Management, Inventory Management, Merch Financial Planning, Demand Forecasting, Assortment Planning, Allocation, Replenishment, Supply Chain, retail technology, or a related techno-functional discipline, with demonstrated experience delivering enterprise-scale planning, inventory, merchandising, or supply chain capabilities.
Deep understanding of retail planning and inventory management, including financial planning, demand forecasting, assortment planning, allocation, replenishment, inventory optimization, and exception management.
Strong product management discipline, with demonstrated ability to translate complex business processes and customer needs into product strategy, roadmaps, requirements, epics, user stories, acceptance criteria, and measurable outcomes; experience using Jira, Confluence, or similar product management tools.
Strong analytical and business orientation, with the ability to use data, business metrics, financial impact, and operational performance to shape product decisions, prioritize investments, and measure value realization.
Experience applying AI, machine learning, automation, optimization, or advanced analytics to improve planning, product management, operational efficiency, or customer outcomes, with the ability to identify and prioritize high-value AI-enabled capabilities.
Demonstrated experience modernizing fragmented or manual planning processes into scalable, governed, system-enabled capabilities, including the ability to evaluate build, buy, extend, partner, and retirement options based on business value, architecture, risk, cost, and speed to value.
Strong cross-functional leadership and influence, with the ability to partner effectively with senior business, Analytics, Engineering, Architecture, and Program Management stakeholders, lead through ambiguity, manage tradeoffs and dependencies, and drive alignment across a matrixed organization.
Experience in large-scale, multi-channel or omnichannel retail environments strongly preferred, including experience with internally developed products, commercial Inventory Management packaged solutions, or hybrid technology approaches. Relevant retail planning consulting experience is also desirable.
Strong communication and delivery discipline, with experience across Agile, Scrum, Lean, and/or waterfall delivery models and the ability to clearly communicate product strategy, priorities, risks, tradeoffs, and business outcomes to stakeholders at all levels.
Bachelor’s degree or more in Supply Chain, Business, Finance, Engineering, Computer Science, Information Systems, Analytics, or a related field or equivalent work experience.
This role requires being onsite in the San Francisco CA office Monday through Thursday.
Some travel may be required to WSI corporate, store, distribution, care center, manufacturing, or supply chain locations within the United States.

Our Culture & Values
We believe that taking care of our people is vital to our success and we strive to offer equitable and transparent practices for all. We prioritize connection, growth, and wellbeing.

People First
Putting People First means investing in overall well-being and opportunities to grow and advance within the organization. Depending on the position and location, here are a few highlights of what benefits may be available:

Benefits

A generous discount on all WSI brands
A 401(k) plan and other investment opportunities
Paid vacations, holidays, and time off to volunteer
Health benefits, dental and vision insurance, including same-sex domestic partner benefits
Tax-free commuter benefits
A wellness program that supports your physical, financial and emotional health

Continued Learning

In-person and online learning opportunities through WSI University
Cross-brand and cross-function career opportunities
Resources for self-development
Advisor (Mentor) program
Career development workshops, learning programs, and speaker series

WSI will not now or in the future commence an immigration case or "sponsor" an individual for this position (for example, H-1B or other employment-based immigration).

This role is not eligible for relocation assistance.

Williams-Sonoma, Inc. is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Williams-Sonoma, Inc. will consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with the requirements of the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, or other applicable state or local laws and ordinances.

The expected starting pay range for this position is $160,000- $190,000. Applicable pay ranges may differ across markets. Actual pay will be determined based on experience and other job-related factors permitted by law. In addition to competitive pay, compensation may include a variety of other components like benefits, paid time off, merit, and bonus opportunities.

Our Company

Founded in 1956, Williams-Sonoma, Inc. is the premier specialty retailer of high-quality products for the kitchen and home in the United States. Our family of brands are Williams Sonoma, Williams Sonoma Home, Pottery Barn, Pottery Barn Kids, Pottery Barn Teen, Rejuvenation, West Elm, Mark & Graham, Outward, and GreenRow. These brands are among the best known and most respected in the industry. We offer beautifully-designed, stylish and functional products for every area of the home, including the kitchen, living room, bedroom, home office, closet, laundry room and even outdoor spaces. We've seen some big changes since our first brick-and-mortar store opened more than half of a century ago. What hasn't changed is our passion for high-quality products, functional design, outstanding customer service, and enhancing the lives of our customers and the communities where we operate. Today, we're a multi-brand, multi-channel, global enterprise supported by state-of-the-art technology and some of the most talented teams in retailing - and we're always looking for new energy and ideas.

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