Senior Lead - Innovation Footwear Developer

This senior individual contributor role is based in Zürich and focuses on turning breakthrough footwear technologies into validated, inline-ready solutions. The role leads complex technical work streams from feasibility and prototyping through validation, industrialisation and clean transfer into inline creation and manufacturing. It works across Innovation Development, Product Creation, Sourcing and supply partners, bringing Swiss Engineering precision closer to the manufacturing ecosystem.

• Lead assigned innovation-development work streams, translating athlete needs, product intent and technology direction into technical requirements, experiment plans, success criteria and milestones
• While challenging conventional footwear construction and manufacturing through first-principles thinking, curiosity and disciplined experimentation.
• Validate and industrialise new technologies through hypothesis-driven prototypes, trials and test-and-learn cycles across materials, construction, tooling, process and manufacturing technology.
• Resolve technical risks across performance, fit, quality, durability, manufacturability, automation and repeatability using structured root-cause analysis and data-backed decisions.
• Define and present evidence required at agreed technology-readiness gates, making risks, assumptions and decisions visible.
• Deliver clean technology transfer by partnering with Vietnam Innovation Development and inline Creation to define use purpose, timing, receiving team and readiness expectations for each assigned technology.
• Build complete transfer packages covering specifications, CAD, BOM, process windows, methods, SOPs, test evidence, quality controls, capability and machinery needs, training requirements and known risks.
• Support receiving teams and manufacturing partners through ramp-up, maintaining a closed feedback loop until the technology is stable, repeatable and ready to scale.
• Maintain decisions, evidence and technical artefacts in digital format as the single source of truth.
• Work directly with Tier 1 and Tier 2 partners to assess technical capability, co-develop solutions and define investment, confidentiality and intellectual-property conditions required for success, while partnering closely with Sourcing on technical feasibility and validation
• And surface relevant emerging capabilities across the Asian manufacturing ecosystem to agreed innovation priorities.
• Connect Innovation, Development, Engineering, Materials, Testing, Sourcing and manufacturing partners around one technical plan and clear decision ownership, and coach project teams and partners, share technical knowledge and improve working methods without formal people-management responsibility
• While building a culture of low ego, high agency, psychological safety, experimentation and accountability with sustainability, durability and material or process efficiency embedded in technical decisions.

• 10+ years of experience in sports footwear, innovation development, R&D, engineering or a closely related field.
• A degree in engineering, materials science, product development or a related discipline, or equivalent depth of relevant industry experience.
• Deeply technical innovation developer comfortable on the factory floor and aligning a global project team, combining curiosity and bold thinking with the discipline to turn ambiguity into evidence, decisions and repeatable execution.
• Deep expertise in at least one footwear technical discipline, with strong working fluency across product development, materials, upper or bottom-unit engineering, tooling and manufacturing processes.
• A proven record of moving technologies from early prototypes through validation, industrialisation and repeatable production.
• Strong experience working directly with Tier 1 and Tier 2 partners within the Asian footwear manufacturing ecosystem.
• Practical capability in experimental design, structured problem-solving, root-cause analysis, risk management and interpretation of test or manufacturing data.
• The independence and judgement to lead complex technical work streams while knowing when to align, challenge or escalate.
• A proven ability to influence without formal authority and align teams across regions, cultures, disciplines and time zones.
• Clear, influential communication, with the ability to translate technical complexity into decisions, actions and compelling product or technology narratives.
• A strong understanding of supplier capability, confidentiality, intellectual property and the conditions required to scale innovation responsibly.
• Fluent in English, both written and spoken.

• Based in Zürich.
• Part of a connected global team spanning Zurich and Vietnam.
• Works across Innovation Development, Product Creation, Sourcing and supply partners.

At On, innovation is considered complete when athlete value is proven, the technology is understood, and creation and manufacturing partners can reproduce it with precision.