Senior Lead - Footwear Developer

On

SENIOR LEAD FOOTWEAR DEVELOPER  IN SHORT: As the Senior Lead Footwear Developer for Performance Running, you serve as the strategic technical consultant for our most critical product category. Based in our Zurich HQ, your role is to ensure high-level alignment between design intent and manufacturing feasibility. Rather than managing the granular execution of every product, you provide the technical governance and cross-functional support necessary to maintain performance integrity as the category scales. The Senior Lead Development role will report to the Senior Lead Run Footwear Development on the Performance Run team supporting global footwear.  YOUR MISSION: * Technical Stewardship: Act as the primary technical advisor during the briefing and design phases to ensure performance running concepts are aligned with global manufacturing capabilities. * Strategic Synchronization: Facilitate technical alignment between Zurich-based Design/Product Management and the Asia-based execution teams, ensuring that the "performance soul" of the category is preserved across all franchises. * Process Enablement: Support the evolution of development standards by identifying technical bottlenecks and advising on best practices that improve category-wide efficiency. * Advisory & Escalation Support: Serve as the senior technical point of contact for Asia-based development partners, providing guidance on complex technical hurdles and supporting the resolution of high-level production escalations. * Performance Quality Assurance: Support the validation of fit, feel, and durability standards, ensuring that category-wide technical benchmarks are consistently met across different factory partners. * Knowledge Facilitation: Foster a culture of technical excellence by mentoring the broader development team and translating complex innovation breakthroughs into actionable development frameworks.   YOUR STORY: * Experience: 8–12 years in footwear development, with a background rooted in high-performance running and technical complexity. * Influential Leadership: Proven ability to influence product direction and technical outcomes through partnership and advisory, rather than direct line management or project ownership. * Systemic Thinking: A deep understanding of how performance tooling, materials, and construction impact the global supply chain and product lifecycle. * Collaborative Bridge: Exceptional at navigating HQ and regional dynamics, acting as a "technical translator" between creative vision and factory execution. * Strategic Judgment: Highly skilled at evaluating technical trade-offs and providing recommendations that balance innovation with commercial scalability. * Consultative Communication: A trusted voice capable of guiding stakeholders toward technically sound decisions while maintaining strong cross-functional relationships.   ATTRIBUTES OF A SUCCESSFUL CANDIDATE:  * The Technical Advisor: You don't need to hold the pen on every tech pack, but you are the person everyone consults when a design pushes the boundaries of physics. * The Strategic Partner: You focus on the "how" and "why," ensuring the category’s technical roadmap is robust and scalable. * The Alignment Specialist: You thrive in the space between teams, ensuring that no technical detail is "lost in translation" between Zurich and our global manufacturing partners.   YOUR TEAM: You will join the Zurich-based Footwear Development team, serving as a senior pillar of expertise for the Performance Running category. A high-performance collective of engineers, developers, and makers who serve as the technical heart of the brand. In Zurich, our team acts as the primary link between Biomechanical Research, Material Science, Design, and Sourcing, ensuring that every innovation is grounded in technical reality before it reaches the athlete. Our mission is to relentlessly elevate the performance and technical attributes of our running footwear. We don't just facilitate product creation; we engineer the "ride." As part of the Performance Run vertical, you will be surrounded by specialists who are obsessed with creating the best fitting, performing and desirable running product in the market. We pride ourselves on a culture of technical rigor and "Swiss Engineering," where we challenge the status quo to solve the most complex biomechanical hurdles in the industry. Your role within this team is to ensure that as our category expands, our technical standards and the performance "soul" of our run footwear remain uncompromised. On is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We are committed to creating a work environment that is fair and inclusive, where all decisions related to recruitment, advancement, and retention are free of discrimination.

On

In short: As a Lead, Innovation commercialization engineer, you will be a driving force at the forefront of On's scale of  product evolution. You will operate with a high degree of autonomy to lead complex projects, challenge conventions, and champion innovative approaches that define the future of footwear. This role requires you to master technical complexity, manage key stakeholder relationships, and translate visionary concepts into scalable, performance-driven products.   Your Mission: * As a leader within the team, you will independently manage multiple high-impact footwear development projects from confirmation to production, defining methods and procedures for new assignments and potentially supervising other team members. As a senior contributor, you will leverage your expertise to guide and influence both management and your team. * You will spearhead the end-to-end commercialization process, leveraging your expert knowledge of manufacturing processes, fit, material properties, mold and process manufacturing. Your strong root-cause analysis mindset will be crucial in troubleshooting significant and unique issues related to tooling, molding, assembly, fit, and wear. * As the central hub for On’s key manufacturing regions, you will act as a critical liaison between On inline development and production teams, working closely with strategic vendors to ensure product intent is maintained while meeting commercial and operational requirements. You will engineer products for efficient manufacturability, lowest cost, and highest quality and performance. * You will serve as a key influencer and central communication hub, managing expectations and negotiating effectively with diverse internal teams and major external T1/T2 partners and sourcing teams across regions.  * Collaborating with computational designers, you will work with upper patterns and tooling construction adjustments to enhance fit, durability, and ensure scalable manufacturing. You will be responsible for full size run grading, technical manufacturing operation manuals, initial production trial, ERP system update, scalability sign off, among others. * You will own the documentation of complex tooling and upper-related issues, defining and communicating clear correction actions to all stakeholders for manufacturing guidelines.   Your Story: * 8+ years of progressive experience in the footwear industry, with a significant focus on innovation and bringing new technologies to market. * Bachelor’s or Master's Degree in Engineering, Material Science, or another relevant technical field. * 2D and 3D, computational design and algorithmic capabilities are a plus. * Proven ability to not only lead the scaling of new technologies but also to assess their commercial viability and factory readiness. * Expert-level knowledge of advanced footwear manufacturing processes, including robotics, automation, tooling, molding, injecting, welding, lasting, and assembly. You understand factory capabilities, tolerances, and limitations and know how to engineer for scalable replication. * A natural technical curiosity and a robust, root-cause analysis approach to problem-solving. * Exceptional communication, negotiation, and influencing skills, with the ability to confidently present to senior management and external partners. * A demonstrated ability to work with a high degree of autonomy, navigating ambiguity and making independent judgments on complex and significant issues. * Experience in mentoring junior team members or supervising project activities is a strong plus. * Ability to travel up to 15-20% of the time.   Your Team: On's Innovation team is an agile, interdisciplinary group of footwear creation, advanced manufacturing, and future of sport experts, driving On's future innovations and athlete-informed technologies that set On footwear apart. We challenge the status quo and push boundaries to pioneer footwear innovation. As a member of the On Innovation Team, you will think outside the box and bring new, innovative ideas to life.

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