Nixon Is Hiring Again: How an Action Sports Watch Brand Builds Its Team in Carlsbad

Nixon, the watch and accessories brand born straight out of the action sports world, is staffing up again, and its return to hiring on Malakye, including a Merchandise Manager job at its Carlsbad-area headquarters, is a great excuse to pop the back off the case and look at how an established action sports company is actually built. When a brand with this much history posts a job, it tells you something bigger than one opening. It tells you the machine is running, product is moving, and the industry that raised it still has room to grow.

Let's start with the origin story, because Nixon's is one of the good ones. The brand was founded in 1997 in Encinitas, California by Andy Laats and Chad DiNenna, two people who came up inside the action sports business and wanted a watch that actually fit the way surfers, skaters, and snowboarders lived, according to Wikipedia. That is the whole thesis in one sentence. They were not watch-industry lifers chasing a trend. They were insiders solving a problem they personally had.

The bet paid off because it was specific. As the surf-industry writeup at Surfd describes it, Nixon is "associated with stylish watches and a range of quality lifestyle gear," built for action sports enthusiasts and especially surfers. The early products went into surf, skate, and snow shops, the exact retail channel where the founders already had credibility, and grew a following by doing things a generic watch could not, like telling the tide. That is the kind of nerdy, function-first detail that turns a customer into a lifer.

From a Surf-Shop Idea to a Nine-Figure Brand

Nixon did not stay a scrappy Encinitas startup for long. In December 2006, the brand was acquired by Billabong International for approximately US$55 million plus a deferred payment of approximately US$76 million, per Wikipedia. Then in 2012 came the deal that really tells you what the brand was worth: an agreement with Trilantic Capital Partners and Billabong, each ending up with a 48.5 percent stake, in a transaction that valued the company at approximately US$464 million, again according to Wikipedia. A brand that started because someone could not find the right watch on a shopping trip became a nine-figure business. That is the action sports playbook at its best.

Along the way the company outgrew its first home. Nixon moved its headquarters to Carlsbad, California for more space, and today it makes wristwatches, accessories, and apparel with a footprint that reaches beyond San Diego County, as noted on Wikipedia. Carlsbad matters here. That stretch of North County San Diego coastline is one of the densest clusters of action sports and outdoor brands anywhere, which means Nixon is hiring inside a talent pool that already speaks the language.

How the Org Is Actually Built

Here is the part we get nerdy about at Malakye. A watch brand looks simple from the outside, one product on your wrist, but the org chart behind it is a beautiful little ecosystem of jobs that all have to fit together. We can see that ecosystem in real time, because current Nixon people are on the platform right now, and their titles map the whole machine.

Start with product, because nothing ships without it. A watch brand lives and dies on design and merchandising working in lockstep. On the design side, Rina Murray works as Design Studio Manager, the person keeping the creative engine organized so concepts actually become products. On the merchandising side, Myles Illion works as a Merchandiser, which is exactly the discipline the newly posted Merchandise Manager job sits inside. Merchandising is the connective tissue between design, sales, and the customer. It decides what gets made, in what colors and quantities, at what price, and when it hits the floor. When a brand adds a Merchandise Manager, it is usually a sign the assortment is expanding and someone needs to own how the line comes together.

Then comes sales, the side of the house that turns product into revenue. Felipe Motta works as Senior Director of Global Sales, steering the brand into markets worldwide. Underneath a global sales leader you need the people who keep accounts happy day to day, and Nixon has them: Ray Flores in dealer support and Stephanie Betancourt as a Sales Associate. Every wholesale order that flows through a surf or skate shop touches jobs like these.

Surrounding product and sales is the operational backbone that nobody sees but everybody depends on. Joanna Hibbard works as an AR and Credit Specialist, the person making sure the money actually comes in, while Adam Kenton handles exceptions coordination, the unglamorous but critical job of catching the orders that do not fit the normal flow. And no action sports brand survives without a voice, which is where Deborah Hsu comes in as PR and Marketing Coordinator, keeping the brand loud in the communities that built it.

Look at those jobs together and you can see the whole flow: design dreams it up, merchandising shapes it into a line, sales moves it into the channel, dealer support and finance keep the relationship and the revenue healthy, and marketing tells the world. That is a complete company in miniature, and every one of those functions is a career lane inside action sports.

What a Brand Staffing Up Tells the Industry

Here is why we care so much when a name like Nixon comes back to hire. Malakye has been the meeting point for action sports, outdoor, and lifestyle careers since 2002, and over more than two decades we have learned to read hiring as a signal. When an established brand with real history and a serious balance sheet opens jobs across merchandising and beyond, it is voting with its payroll that the market is worth investing in. That confidence ripples out to the shops, the reps, and every person trying to break into the industry.

It is also a reminder of how you actually land one of these jobs. Nixon did not become Nixon by hiring generalists who happened to need work. It was built by people who already lived the lifestyle, understood the channel, and cared about the tiny details, like tide functions, that make an action sports product feel authentic. The Merchandise Manager who gets the Carlsbad job will be the person who understands both the spreadsheet and the surf shop.

If that sounds like you, this is exactly what the platform is for. Follow the brand and see its full profile on the Nixon company page, browse the rest of the industry on Malakye companies, and go find your lane on the Malakye jobs board. A brand that started with one person hunting for the right watch is now hunting for the right people. That is a pretty good place to be.