Assistant Product Technologist

Primark is an international clothing retailer employing more than 70,000 colleagues across 17 countries in Europe and the US. Founded in Ireland in 1969 under the Penneys brand, Primark aims to create maximum joy at minimum cost – less money and less impact on the planet. Primark continues to expand across new and existing markets with the aim of reaching 530 stores by the end of 2026. Every person impacts the culture at Primark. Our values: Caring (we always strive to put people first), Dynamic (we bravely push the boundaries to stay ahead) and Together (we learn more, laugh more and achieve more as a team) outline the behaviours we expect of our people as we work with each other, our customers, our suppliers and our partners. Let’s see what impact you can make!

Job Title: Assistant Product Technologist D11 – Home & Lifestyle

Reports To: Product Technologist D11

Team: Home & Lifestyle

Location: Dublin

Job Type: 12-month fixed term contract

Purpose of the Role

To contribute to developing product to in line with Primark Quality Assurance Standards. To assist the Product Technologists, buying teams, suppliers and key stakeholders in maintaining best practise and ensuring product meets the Primark customer's expectations.

Duties & Responsibilities

Product and Process

• Build and develop capability to assess commercial quality and testing requirements.
• Assist with product development and adhere to “the Best Practice” sample process flow.
• Investigate all Gold Seal rejections and communicate quality issues to buying teams and suppliers.
• Build competitor awareness to enable quality, fit and performance benchmarking of Primark versus key competitors.
• Work with the Primark Compliance team to ensure the Primark Quality Standards are in line with industry standards (Value/Volume retail).
• Demonstrate an understanding of the legal/product/retail requirements for labelling.
• Assist in identifying potential fit, fabric or component quality issues.
• Manage reporting of testing submissions by supplier/product area/product type
• Compile and conclude tech packs and score card analysis as part of the delivery of the key line programme to ensure Primark quality standards and cost efficiencies are achieved.
• Investigate and support resolution of quality issues in a timely manner with clear solutions and communication to all relevant stakeholders.
• Monitors the Returns Report to identify high returning styles/products, highlighting risk to Product Technologists and develop CAP to resolve and improve future deliveries.
• With guidance from the Product Technologist learn to identify risk suppliers/product for Pre-shipment and CFS inspection.
• Evaluating risk and ability to make commercial recommendations on quality priorities in a volume environment.
• Investigate customer feedback/customer complaints/product issues and record on the quality incident log.

Suppliers

• Communicate with suppliers on the technical development of product.
• Highlight risk areas from testing submissions and with support of the Product Technologists work on an improvement plan.
• Assist Suppliers on technical queries concerning product development.
• Assist with regular updates to the supply base on Primark quality standards.
• Gain an understanding of the ethical team’s factory audit process and compliance to understand supplier performance.

Communication and Influence

• Communicates and interacts clearly and concisely to ensure that information is understood by buying teams, retail and external contacts.
• Demonstrates/develop effective communication skills tailored to the audience and objectives; provides feedback and responds to others in a professional, courteous and respectful manner.
• Supports the Product Technologist to deliver training and engagement with Buying teams and Suppliers to improve the sampling hit rate.
• Identifies and gathers relevant information to solve problems and make informed decisions relating to quality standards.
• Makes decisions independently within parameters and understands when to seek guidance; collaborates with impacted stakeholders (Buyers, Suppliers and Peers).
• Attends Buying & Merchandising department meetings representing Quality Assurance.

Working with others

• Works effectively with others to deliver common goals; readily offers support.
• Respects the ideas and contributions of others and readily takes opportunities to learn and seek out stretching opportunities to support own development.
• Demonstrates self-awareness and understanding of own skills, abilities and development areas.
• Prioritises and manages own activities in a structured, independent and timely way; keeps others informed and obtains additional information when required.
• Understands business need for flexibility and modifies behaviour; accordingly, exhibits a positive, determined and results driven attitude.
• Contributes to and supports the delivery and content of the Primark Quality Academy training courses.
• Supports training in best practice for sample approval to QA, buying teams and suppliers.
• Supports regular updates to the buying teams and suppliers regarding new sections within the QA manual.

Our fashion isn’t one-size-fits-all and neither is our culture. Primark promotes equal employment opportunity, we strive to create an inclusive workplace where people can be themselves, access opportunities and thrive together.