Cascade Designs Is Hiring: What Five Open Jobs Reveal About Gear Innovation at Scale

Information Leak

Here is a thing we love to do at Malakye: read a company by its open jobs. Not the press release, not the mission statement, the actual list of seats it is trying to fill right now. That list is the most honest document a business produces, because nobody spends real money hiring for a problem they do not have. So when one company shows up with the most active job roster on our board, we pay attention. Right now that company is Cascade Designs, and the tell is impossible to miss.

Five open jobs. Every single one is marketing, creative, or digital. And every single one is based in Reno, Nevada, not the Seattle headquarters where the company was founded in 1972. For a legacy outdoor-gear engineering company, the maker of Therm-a-Rest, MSR (Mountain Safety Research), Platypus, and SealLine, that is a loud signal. Let us break down what it actually means and, more useful to you, how you get one of these seats.

Who Cascade Designs Actually Is

If you have ever slept on a self-inflating pad in the backcountry, you have touched this company. Cascade Designs is the Seattle-based parent of some of the most trusted names in outdoor gear. Therm-a-Rest invented the self-inflating sleeping pad category back in the 1970s. MSR builds stoves, tents, water filters, and snowshoes that guides and expedition climbers stake their lives on. Platypus makes hydration systems, and SealLine makes dry bags for people who paddle into weather. This is not a hype brand. This is a fifty-plus-year engineering house whose products earn loyalty on function, not marketing.

Which is exactly why the current hiring pattern is so interesting. A company that historically won on the strength of its gear is now loading up on people who tell the story of that gear. When an engineering-first company starts spending six figures on brand and creative, something is shifting under the hood.

The Five Jobs, Broken Down by Function and Pay

Here is the full roster as it sits on the Malakye jobs board today, all in Reno, Nevada, with the real published salary ranges:

• Senior Marketing Manager, New Product Development, $115,000 to $145,000. The senior go-to-market brain. Owns how new gear reaches the customer and how the launch lands.
• Creative Director, $115,000 to $145,000. The visual and conceptual voice across every brand. Sets the look, hires and directs the creative bench, protects the aesthetic.
• Senior Digital Designer, $80,000 to $100,000. The hands-on craft seat. Web, email, digital campaigns, the pixels a customer actually sees.
• Marketing Manager, New Product Development, $80,000 to $110,000. The execution partner to the senior manager. Runs the launch calendar and keeps product and marketing in sync.
• Social Media Manager, $90,000 to $110,000. The daily voice in the feed, the community builder, the one turning gear into culture.

Notice the shape of it. Two of the five are explicitly tied to New Product Development, and both of those are the New Product Development marketing seats. That is not a coincidence, and it is the whole story.

What "New Product Development" Marketing Really Means at a Gear Company

At a lot of companies, marketing sits downstream. Engineering builds a thing, then tosses it over the wall to marketing to go sell it. When a gear company creates dedicated New Product Development marketing seats, it is doing the opposite. It is pulling marketing upstream, into the room where the product is still being designed.

That means these jobs are not just about writing launch copy. They are about being the voice of the customer while the gear is still on the bench. Who is this for? What problem does it solve better than the last version? What is the one sentence that makes a backpacker understand why it matters? A New Product Development marketer at a company like this works shoulder to shoulder with product and engineering, translating technical innovation into a reason to buy. It is one of the most valuable and transferable skill sets in the entire outdoor industry, because every serious gear brand eventually needs it. If you want to see the same upstream shift in apparel, look at how technical patternmaking and design are converging in our piece on 3D design and digital patternmaking at Speedo.

Why Reno, and Why It Matters to You

Seattle is the historic headquarters, but Cascade Designs has operated in Reno, Nevada for years, and that is where this entire creative and marketing build-out is landing. For a job seeker, geography is strategy. Reno is not a saturated outdoor-industry hub the way Denver or Portland or Salt Lake are. That means less local competition for these seats and a real opportunity for someone willing to be in the market or relocate. It also tells you the company is building a marketing center of gravity there, on purpose. Getting in early on a team that is being stood up is worth more than joining one that is already fully baked.

The Gear-Innovation Career Path and What Transfers

Here is the part that outlives any single job posting. The skills these five seats demand are portable across the entire industry. A Creative Director who can hold a multi-brand aesthetic together can do that at any house that owns more than one label. A Social Media Manager who can turn a water filter into a story people share can do that for a bike brand or a boot brand next. A New Product Development marketer who can bridge engineering and customer is valuable to literally every hardgoods company on the planet.

That is the mindset we push constantly: build skills that transfer, not just skills that fit one seat. If you want to sharpen that thinking, read our take on upskilling to stay hireable. The gear-innovation lane rewards people who understand both the product and the person buying it, and that pairing is rare enough to command the salaries you see above.

Network In Using the People Already on Malakye

You do not apply into a void. Cascade Designs has a real footprint of professionals right here on Malakye, and that is your way in. Warm beats cold every time.

Start with the people closest to the product. Philip Hitch, Director of Product Development, sits at the exact intersection these New Product Development marketing seats serve. On the marketing side, Karen Lamerick, Senior Marketing Director, is squarely in the function that is hiring. For the commercial view, Brandon Gough, US Sales Manager, knows how these products go to market. Operations and supply chain run through people like D Means, a longtime Sourcing and Purchasing Department Manager who understands how the company actually builds things.

Do not overlook the alumni, either. Chris Parkhurst, former SVP and COO and also a former MSR EVP, and Jess Kubat, former Marketing Program Manager, both carry inside knowledge of how the place runs and what it values. Former employees are often the most candid source of intel you will find. Before you reach out to any of them, do your homework so your first message is sharp and specific. Our guide on how to use AI to research a company before you apply will get you there fast.

How to Read This Like a Malakye Insider

Five marketing and creative jobs, all in one new location, all posted in the same window, at a company famous for engineering. That is not routine backfill. That is a legacy gear maker deciding that great products are not enough anymore, that the story around the gear now has to be as good as the gear itself. Whether that is a full rebrand, a new product wave, or a go-to-market overhaul, the people they hire into these seats will help shape it.

If you want to find more signals like this, scan the full companies directory and read the rosters the way we just did. The companies hiring in clusters are the ones telling you where they are headed. Cascade Designs is telling you loudly. The only question is whether you answer.

Image: Cascade Designs