Demand Planner II

Overview

Placement Type:

Temporary

Salary

$25.52-28.36 Hourly

Start Date:

Dec 7, 2026

Duration:

6 months + extension

• Job Title: Demand Planner II (Internal/JD title: Senior Demand & Inventory Planner)
• Engagement Type: Temporary (3 months + potential extensions)
• Pay Rate: $28.36/hr W2
• Schedule: Full-time, 40 hours/week (flexible down to 32 hours / 4 days if requested); standard 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM (core collaboration window: 8:30 AM – 3:30 PM)
• Work Arrangement: Onsite 4 days/week (Monday – Thursday), Portland, OR

Join a forward-thinking leader in its industry, a company dedicated to innovation and excellence in product delivery. As a valued partner, SKILL is seeking exceptional talent to drive critical supply chain initiatives. This is an incredible opportunity to make a tangible impact, ensuring product availability and optimizing inventory strategies across diverse channels, including a rapidly growing ecommerce presence. Your expertise will directly shape customer satisfaction and financial performance, playing a pivotal role in the company’s continued success.

About the Role

Step into a pivotal role where you will own the end-to-end demand plan and inventory strategy for a dynamic product portfolio. This position is central to balancing customer service with efficient inventory management, directly influencing key business outcomes. You will be the subject-matter expert, translating complex data into actionable insights and proactive solutions. This is your chance to lead critical cross-functional discussions, drive strategic decisions, and continuously improve planning processes, contributing significantly to both financial health and customer experience.

What You’ll Do

• Demand Planning Excellence

• Own the comprehensive demand forecast across all stocked product categories and sales channels.

• Integrate historical demand, seasonality, sales trends, project activity, new product launches, transitions, discontinuations, and market intelligence into robust forecasts.

• Develop and refine incremental demand assumptions specifically for ecommerce channels.

• Review planning system exceptions and apply expert judgment at the category level.

• Rigorously measure forecast accuracy, identify forecast bias, and analyze demand volatility.

• Conduct in-depth root-cause analysis when forecasts deviate materially from actual demand.

• Facilitate crucial cross-functional demand reviews with sales, product, finance, operations, and ecommerce stakeholders.

• Strategic Inventory Management

• Translate approved demand forecasts into precise inventory requirements.

• Establish and recommend optimal safety-stock targets, reorder strategies, service-level expectations, and inventory policies.

• Proactively monitor weeks of supply, projected stockout dates, backorders, inventory investment levels, and identify excess or slow-moving inventory.

• Identify potential inventory gaps well in advance, allowing for timely business responses.

• Provide clear recommendations on buy quantities and required receipt timing to the supply planning team.

• Develop comprehensive inventory plans for new product launches, ecommerce expansion, samples, product transitions, and discontinuations.

• Strategically balance product availability against working-capital efficiency and the risk of excess inventory.

• Ecommerce Readiness and Optimization

• Develop varied demand scenarios (conservative, expected, higher-growth) to support ecommerce performance.

• Compare ecommerce-adjusted demand against available inventory and confirmed incoming supply.

• Proactively identify ecommerce-enabled products at risk of stockout.

• Monitor early ecommerce selling behavior and dynamically adjust assumptions as actual demand materializes.

• Recommend initial inventory investments and ongoing replenishment actions for ecommerce assortments.

• Maintain a robust dashboard tracking ecommerce launch status and inventory risks.

• Driving Business Insights

• Lead recurring reviews of category performance and inventory health.

• Present clear insights on inventory risks, gaps, opportunities, and strategic recommendations to leadership.

• Effectively communicate the financial and customer implications of planning decisions.

• Provide actionable decision recommendations, moving beyond mere data reporting.

• Serve as the demand-planning process owner and subject-matter expert for planning tools.

• Champion the improvement of planning discipline and adoption across the organization.

• Key Deliverables

• Monthly consensus demand plan.

• Approved inventory requirements.

• Detailed ecommerce demand scenarios.

• Comprehensive inventory-health dashboard.

• Proactive stockout-risk report.

• Recommendations for managing excess and slow-moving inventory.

• Regular forecast accuracy and bias reporting.

• Strategic launch and lifecycle inventory plans.

• Monthly leadership inventory narrative.

Performance will be measured by:

• Forecast accuracy and bias.

• Effectiveness in stockout-risk identification.

• Achievement of service level and product availability targets.

• Optimization of inventory investment.

• Reduction of excess and slow-moving inventory.

• Successful adoption of planning recommendations.

• Alignment of ecommerce forecast versus actual performance.

• What You’ll Bring

• Required Qualifications

• Minimum of 5 years of experience in demand planning, inventory planning, merchandise planning, supply-chain analytics, or a related field.

• Demonstrated strong analytical and problem-solving skills.

• Proven ability to translate complex data into clear, actionable business recommendations.

• Advanced proficiency in Excel and experience with reporting tools.

• Hands-on experience with ERP and demand-planning platforms.

• Excellent communication and presentation skills, capable of engaging diverse audiences.

• A strong ability to influence cross-functional decisions without direct authority.