Director, Insights

Job Title:

Director, Insights

About Bombas:

Bombas is a comfort focused premium basics brand with a mission to help those in need. The company launched in 2013, after the founders learned that socks are the #1 most requested clothing item at homeless shelters. From there, they set out to solve that problem, donating a pair of socks for every pair they sell. How do you donate a lot of socks? You sell a lot. And how do you sell a lot? You make the most comfortable socks in the history of feet. Millions of pairs sold and donated later, Bombas has continued to innovate within its mission and product, introducing new socks, as well as underwear and t-shirts, the #2 and #3 most requested clothing items at homeless shelters, all while continuing to make a positive impact on the community where we all work and live.

Click here to see what it's like to work inside the Bombas Hive!

The word Bombas is derived from the Latin word for bumblebees. Bees work together to make their hive a better place. At Bombas, we’re inspired by that. We know it’s the collective efforts of our team that keeps the Hive alive and strong - a team that is diverse and inclusive. Different perspectives strengthen our ability to make the most comfortable versions of the products people wear closest to their bodies every day and to serve the communities where we all work and live. We are committed to continuously building a Hive where all are welcomed, seen, and heard regardless of age, color, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, genetics, physical or mental ability, protected veteran status race, religion and sexual orientation. As a team, we will strive to create room for different experiences and empower all voices.

Based on the specific needs and job requirements, this role will be working out of our Bombas HQ in New York City.

About the Job:

We are looking for a strategic, commercially-minded, and highly collaborative team player to join our Insights team as our Director of Insights , reporting directly to our Chief Marketing Officer & GM, eCommerce. The ideal candidate has 8+ years of progressive experience in Consumer Insights, Commercial Strategy, or Brand Strategy within consumer products, retail, footwear, apparel, or adjacent industries. The Director of Insights leads Bombas’ consumer research function, translating qualitative feedback, market signals, and product testing into actionable inputs for our Product, Marketing, and Brand teams.

This is a player-coach role. You will operate ahead of the business, shaping the go-to-market agenda before problems surface, while staying close enough to real-time signal to catch and personally engage on issues that require a faster reaction. You will partner closely with peer leaders across Merchandising, Product Marketing, Acquisition, and Retention as a trusted advisor. Final decisions on category priorities, pivots, and pricing sit with those functions. Your job is to make sure they’re making those decisions with the sharpest possible insight in hand.

What you’ll be responsible for:

Consumer/Product Opportunity Mapping & Enablement

Build the strategic consumer POV that informs Merchandising and Executive leadership’s decisions on which product areas and customer segments matter most, owning the Opportunity Map as the underlying framework.

Serve as one of several key voices, alongside Merchandising, Site, and Brand, identifying and framing when consumer and market signals suggest a potential pivot in category or campaign strategy.

Present the Opportunity Map and category growth levers to peer Directors and leadership, translating research into clear implications for the business.

Partner with the Director of Product Marketing to represent the consumer point of view across go-to-market, supporting positioning through surveys, wear tests, and other consumer research.

Build strong senior relationships with the Directors of Merchandising, Product Marketing, Acquisition, and Retention to ensure consumer insight is consistently incorporated into decision-making.

Product, Concept & Assortment Intelligence

Serve as a key insight partner to Merchandising’s seasonal line planning POV, providing the consumer and market intelligence that informs the plan without owning the plan itself.

Determine which concepts or assortments carry enough risk to warrant validation research and direct the team’s research priorities accordingly.

Partner with Merchandising to identify when pricing or value positioning may need to be re-evaluated and clearly articulate the consumer signals behind that recommendation.

Oversee wear-testing and QA diagnostic standards in partnership with Sourcing, ensuring the right fit, quality, and product issues surface before mass production.

Insights Operations, Tooling & Real-Time Signal Deployment

Own the call on when a spike in fit, quality, or sentiment signal needs to jump the queue for reactive research, personally getting hands-on when an issue requires a faster response.

Own the quarterly competitive narrative and brand health read for leadership.

Own the Consumer Insights budget and strategic vendor and agency relationships.

Direct the Insights Manager’s partnership with Analytics to implement LLM clustering across review sentiment and CX tickets, helping ensure relevant consumer signals reach Merchandising and Product teams in real time.

Team Leadership & Vendor Ownership

Coach and develop the Manager, Insights, setting clear priorities and creating the conditions for strong research execution and continued growth.

Own final vendor and agency relationship decisions, ensuring external partners and investments support the highest-priority needs of the business.

Your Milestones: Success in One Year’s Time

By the end of your first year, you will have strengthened how Bombas identifies, interprets, and acts on consumer insight across Product, Merchandising, and Marketing. Specifically, you will have achieved:

Opportunity Map Deployment: You have operationalized the Subcategory Opportunity Map across quarterly business reviews, giving Merchandising and leadership a clear consumer-informed framework for FY27/FY28 category prioritization, line planning, and media strategy.

Product QA & Wear-Test Overhaul: You have directed a revamp of wear-testing SOPs and concept validation gates, executed by the Insights Manager in partnership with Sourcing and Merchandising, helping the business identify fit, quality, and product risks earlier.

Cross-Functional Marketing Pipeline: You have established a structured insight-sharing rhythm with Creative, Product Marketing, Acquisition, and Retention, ensuring consumer verbatims and pain points consistently feed into ad testing and campaign briefs.

Real-Time Consumer Signal Deployment: You have directed the Insights Manager’s partnership with Analytics to implement LLM clustering across review sentiment and CX tickets, creating a more responsive system for surfacing relevant signals to Merchandising and Product teams.

Strategic Adoption & Business Impact: The Opportunity Map and broader Insights function are actively used by Executive and functional leaders to inform resource allocation, product priorities, media decisions, and go-to-market strategy, with progress reflected in launch forecast accuracy, assortment pull-through, fit and quality-related returns, campaign resonance, ad hook performance, and cross-sell efficiency.

What we’ll love about you:

A strong storyteller who can turn complex consumer insights into clear, actionable recommendations.

A confident cross-functional influencer who uses evidence to challenge assumptions and shape decisions.

Deeply fluent in product, customer psychology, and DTC dynamics, with a sharp instinct for separating signal from noise.

Thoughtful and pragmatic in your approach, knowing when to dig deep, when to move quickly, and what’s worth priorit