Senior Merchandiser

• Important Note: Only open to Candidates fluent in Mandarin and English, spoken and written

• Only open to residents of Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Shanghai (or open to relocation)

The Company: Glass Factory is building the future of manufacturing. Fashion brands come to us with ideas, and we manufacture them into high-quality products through a combination of AI systems and global factory relationships. We’ve developed an audience of 1.5M+ across YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and our own platform. Our content is central to how we educate brands, build trust with factories, and make the manufacturing world more transparent.

The Position: We’re looking for a Senior Merchandiser to own the on-the-ground execution of client projects as we continue building out Glass Factory’s China operations. We operate closer to an automated sourcing agency than a marketplace: for every client project, we match the right factory, manage quotations, oversee sampling and production, and run quality control from brief to shipped goods. This person sits at the intersection of factories, quality, and client communication, and owns that process end to end for every project they touch; from translating an ambiguous brand request into a concrete production plan through to shipped goods.

There is no fully built China production team to plug into yet. Most of the systems, judgment calls, and process this operation will eventually run on don’t currently exist. They get built by whoever is doing the work today, which is exactly what this role is. This role reports directly to our co-founder and COO, and works closely day to day with our lead production manager.

Responsibilities:

• Own multiple client projects at once, from tech pack and costing through sampling, bulk production, QC, and shipment

• Translate ambiguous brand requests into concrete manufacturing requirements: product specs, quantities, timelines, and budgets

• Source, quote, and negotiate directly with factories on behalf of clients

• Maintain and update order trackers, time and action (T&A) calendars, and sample logs across multiple client projects

• Follow up with factories on sample development, approvals, and production timelines, flagging risk before it becomes a missed deadline or a bad batch

• Help design the reporting, tracking, and escalation processes this operation will run on, since most of it doesn’t exist yet

• Act as the translation layer between a client’s expectations and a factory’s reality

Requirements

Necessary

• 4+ years of experience in merchandising, sourcing, production management, or manufacturing operations, ideally in apparel, footwear, accessories, or related consumer products

• Deep hands-on knowledge of tech packs, costing, sampling, bulk production, QC, and shipping

• Experience managing several client accounts, styles, or factories at once, not just one brand’s production line

• Comfortable with large amounts of ambiguity

• Highly organized, with strong attention to detail and follow-through

• Willingness to travel frequently across Guangdong and other production regions in China

Nice To Have

• Experience working inside a sourcing office, buying office, trading company, or multi-client production organization

• Prior experience at an early-stage startup or in a fast-changing operating environment

• Experience with quality management or inspection systems (e.g. AQL standards)

Specific Tools Experience

Necessary

• Tech pack review and costing tools/spreadsheets

• Production tracking systems (ERP, PLM, or comparable spreadsheet-based systems)

Nice To Have

• Familiarity with customs, import/export processes, or cross-border logistics

Additional Note

This is a startup role, and one of the more foundational hires we’ll make this year. Nobody hands you a fully built process here; you’re the one building it while also doing the work in front of you. We need someone who’s genuinely hungry to be hands-on with client projects and factories right now, not someone looking to sit above the work. If you have real production experience, take real ownership of everything you touch, and treat ambiguity as something to work through rather than something that needs to be resolved before you can start, we want to talk to you.