At a Glance
As a Lead Innovation Footwear Developer, you will play a pivotal role in 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 role demands mastery of technical complexities, effective management of key stakeholder relationships, and the ability to translate visionary concepts into scalable, performance-driven products.
Your Team
On's Innovation team is an agile, interdisciplinary group of footwear creation experts, advanced manufacturing specialists, and pioneers in the future of sport. This dynamic team is devoted to driving On's future innovations and athlete-informed technologies that set On footwear apart from the competition. We constantly challenge the status quo to push the boundaries of footwear innovation. As a member of the On Innovation Team, you will think outside the box and bring fresh, innovative ideas to life.
Your Mission
- Lead and Own: Take charge of the end-to-end creation of impactful, innovative product concepts. You will independently manage multiple projects, ensuring alignment with overarching company goals from initial strategy and conception to commercialization.
- Leverage Expertise: Utilize your expert knowledge of manufacturing processes, material properties, and biomechanics to troubleshoot significant and unique challenges. Your strong root-cause analysis mindset will help you address issues in tooling, molding, and assembly while developing new material applications and specifications.
- Influence and Communicate: Act as a central communication hub among diverse internal teams and major external T1/T2 partners. You will manage expectations, negotiate effectively, and confidently engage with stakeholders at all levels, including senior management.
- Guard Product Performance: Serve as a guardian for product performance by partnering with the testing team and translating consumer feedback into tangible design iterations.
- Collaborate for Perfection: Critically assess and validate last shapes in collaboration with last engineers to enhance fit and performance. Work alongside computational designers to develop upper patterns and construction adjustments that improve fit, durability, and ensure scalable manufacturing.
- Document Complex Issues: Own the documentation of complex tooling and upper-related issues, clearly defining and communicating corrective actions to all stakeholders. You will create and manage comprehensive tech packs, specification sheets, and BOMs while driving development timelines to meet critical calendar milestones.
- Lead the Team: Act as a leader within the team, establishing methods and procedures for new assignments and potentially supervising other team members' activities.
Your Story
- 8+ years of progressive experience in footwear development, with a strong focus on innovation and successfully bringing new technologies to market.
- Bachelor’s or Master's Degree in Engineering, Material Science, or a related technical field.
- Expert-level knowledge of advanced footwear manufacturing processes including tooling, molding, injection, welding, lasting, and assembly.
- A natural technical curiosity coupled with a robust, root-cause analysis approach to problem-solving.
- In-depth knowledge of advanced footwear materials, their properties, and performance characteristics, along with experience in advanced testing and analysis.
- Proven ability to scale new technologies while assessing their commercial viability and factory readiness.
- Exceptional communication, negotiation, and influencing skills, with the ability to confidently present and defend concepts to senior management and external partners.
- A demonstrated ability to work autonomously, navigating ambiguity and making independent judgments on complex issues.
- Experience mentoring junior team members or supervising project activities is a strong plus.
- Comfortable and proficient with industrial machinery and hands-on prototyping.
- Ability to travel up to 10-15% of the time.
Apply online using the form below. Please note that only applications matching the job profile will be considered.