Happy Worker Toys is looking for a full-time Happy Production Coordinator to join our small team. Their mission: oversee new toy, collectible, and apparel projects, coordinating with our team and factory partners to help our creations be their very best.
Role & Responsibilities
- Product Documentation (25%): Create and update documents, including requirements, quotations, guides, checklists, schedules, and more. Use diagrams, photos, and sketches to convey key points visually.
- Team and Factory Communications (20%): Communicate with our teammates and factory partners daily by email, chat, phone and video.
- Review and Improve Samples (20%): Carefully review prototypes and production samples; take photos, make detailed comments, and oversee changes and improvements.
- Project Coordination (10%): Create and update plans and schedules. Solve challenges and ensure the highest quality products, delivered on-time and in the most cost-effective manner.
- Shipping + Logistics (10%): Arrange, coordinate, track and troubleshoot courier, ocean and air shipments, from small courier packages to LCL/FCL ocean and air shipments.
- Quality Control and Safety Testing (10%): Create quality checklists for each product. Ensure products meet and exceed quality expectations, investigating root causes for any issues and finding solutions. Arrange and supervise independent inspectors and testing labs.
- Nurture Factory Relationships (5%): Establish a friendly, professional rapport with factory partners, while maintaining firm oversight to ensure our expectations are consistently achieved. Work with our accounting team to ensure factories and other vendors are paid promptly. Find new factory partners.
- Cheerful Customer Service: Help our team happily support licensors, studios, clients, retailers, and fans, by understanding project goals, participating in e-mails / meetings, laying out options, and preparing schedules.
- Travel and Visits: After travel re-opens: be open to occasional travel to China as/when needed to visit and work with factory partners and remote teammates/suppliers.
- An Integral Team Member: Be a key part of a busy, hard-working and energetic team. Work collaboratively with all our teammates and partners around the world. Help pitch in for anything and everything that helps the team.
- Constant Improvements: Make everything that you do, and we do, better!
- Happiness Creating: Bring happiness to all that you do :).
Experience + Talents
- Education: Degree or diploma in any of the following: manufacturing, industrial design, quality assurance, project management, supply chain, or a related business, engineering, scientific, or artistic discipline.
- Detail-Driven Organizer: Great memory for details; you ensure every “t” is crossed and “i” dotted. Great at setting and managing priorities, task lists and schedules.
- Expert Problem Solver: Able to find solutions to difficult challenges, exhibiting good judgment and making the impossible happen.
- Excellent Communicator: Excellent business writing and speaking skills in English. Beneficial, but not required: working fluency in Mandarin (Putonghua) and/or Cantonese.
- Eye for Aesthetics and Fine Details: Able to tell when a crisp detail has softened, when a color is close but not right, and when the fine details aren’t as fine as they need to be.
- Software, Technology, and Graphics
- Capable and Comfortable with Numbers and Math
- Photography and Images
- Prior Exposure to Materials and Production Methods
- Production Exposure
- Appreciation of Geek Culture and Gaming
- Thrives on Responsibility: Excited to lead and be responsible for numerous projects and initiatives.
- Diverse Work Experience: We’d appreciate seeing a resume that lists all of your previous work experiences – not just the recent positions or the ones you feel relate most to this role.
- Comfortable in Fast-paced Environments: A quick worker who’s practiced at handling lots of to-dos and keeping track of lots of details, without dropping balls. Please tell us about your busiest work experience in your cover letter.
- Other Unique Talents: Extreme papercrafting? Duct tape artistry? Hikaru dorodango? If you decide to apply, let us know what other special talents or know-how you’d bring to Happy Worker. Anything goes!
- Something we want to know: Please let us know your favorite toy and your favorite snack food.
More About the Role
- Employment Type: This is a full time, permanent position.
- Location: Toronto, Canada. Our team works mainly from home, with meets in office both every few weeks and when needed. *Initial training will be in-person for the first few weeks / months.
- COVID-19: Full vaccination / receipt is mandatory, 3 doses preferred; masking indoors.
- Start Date: New team member may begin immediately, or within a couple weeks of being hired.
- Work Hours: Flexible; usually 45 to 50 hrs/week, can extend longer during busy times; regular work in evenings and occasional weekends to fit within time zones in Asia and to keep projects on-schedule.
- Salary + Compensation: $42,500 - $55,000 CAD depending on experience; Medical and dental benefits after 1 year.
About Happy Worker
Happy Worker has been creating (great!) toys and collectibles since 2003. Our small team is passionate about doing our best work, getting all the little details right, and delivering happiness.
- What We Do: Happy Worker designs and manufactures toys and collectibles together with many of the world’s best video game studios, entertainment studios and corporate brands. Our creations are often designed for grownup collectors and video game fans.
- Our Culture: Hardworking, communicative, reliable, fun, honest, self-critical, entrepreneurial, and, of course, happy.
- What Motivates Us: Making our next toy our best toy ever; spreading happiness to toy and game fans, and everyone else we come in contact with.
- Locations / Work from Home: Our core team is in Toronto, with collaborators located across the U.S., Europe and Asia. Most of our factories are in China.
- For More Info: please visit www.happyworker.com.
Applying to Become a Happy Worker
To apply, please send an e-mail with your resume and cover letter to teammate@happyworker.com with the subject line: “I’d like to be a Happy Production Coordinator!”. Please also include links to or sneak peeks at anything else you're really proud of. Pretty please ensure email is less than 10 MB.
In your cover letter, please answer the following 3 bonus questions:
- Why do you want to be a part of the Happy Worker team?
- Where do you see yourself in 2-3 years?
- In past jobs/work, talk about a time when you performed beyond expectations.
Shortlisted candidates will be notified, and offered a short paid project that is completed at home.
