Lead, Innovation Commercialization Engineer
As a Lead, Innovation Commercialization Engineer, you will play a pivotal role at the forefront of On's product evolution. Operating with a high degree of autonomy, you will lead complex projects, challenge conventions, and champion innovative approaches that shape the future of footwear. This position demands a mastery of technical complexities, strong stakeholder management, and the ability to translate visionary concepts into scalable, performance-driven products.
Your Mission
- Independently manage multiple high-impact footwear development projects from confirmation to production. Define methods and processes for new assignments and potentially supervise other team members, leveraging your expertise as a senior contributor to guide and influence management and your team.
- Spearhead the end-to-end commercialization process, utilizing your extensive knowledge of manufacturing processes, fit, material properties, mold, and process manufacturing. Your strong root-cause analysis mindset will be crucial in troubleshooting unique challenges related to tooling, molding, assembly, fit, and wear.
- Act as a critical liaison between On’s inline development and production teams in key manufacturing regions, working closely with strategic vendors to ensure that the product intent is upheld while meeting commercial and operational requirements. Engineer products for efficient manufacturability, cost-effectiveness, and high quality and performance.
- 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.
- Collaborate with computational designers to enhance fit and durability through upper patterns and tooling construction adjustments, ensuring scalable manufacturing. Oversee full-size run grading, technical manufacturing operation manuals, initial production trials, ERP system updates, and scalability sign-off, among other responsibilities.
- Own the documentation of complex tooling and upper-related issues, defining and communicating clear corrective actions to all stakeholders in line with manufacturing guidelines.
Your Story
- 8+ years of progressive experience in the footwear industry, with a strong emphasis 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 lead the scaling of new technologies while assessing their commercial viability and factory readiness.
- Expert-level knowledge of advanced footwear manufacturing processes, including robotics, automation, tooling, molding, injecting, welding, lasting, and assembly.
- Strong understanding of factory capabilities, tolerances, and limitations with an ability to engineer for scalable replication.
- A natural technical curiosity combined with 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.
- Demonstrated ability to work autonomously, navigate ambiguity, and make independent judgments on complex issues.
- Experience mentoring junior team members or supervising project activities is highly regarded.
- Willingness to travel up to 15-20% of the time.
Apply online using the form below. Only applications matching the job profile will be considered.