Senior Lead - Footwear Developer

Your Role and Responsibilities

In this position, you will serve as a strategic technical consultant for a key product category, responsible for ensuring alignment between design intent and manufacturing feasibility.

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 Asia-based execution teams, preserving the "performance soul" of the category 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 resolution of high-level production escalations.
• Performance Quality Assurance: Validate 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 innovation breakthroughs into actionable development frameworks.

Your Story

The ideal candidate will possess:

• Experience: 8–12+ years in footwear development, particularly in high-performance running and technical complexity.
• Influential Leadership: Proven ability to guide product direction and technical outcomes through collaboration and advisory roles.
• Systemic Thinking: Deep understanding of how performance tooling, materials, and construction impact the global supply chain and product lifecycle.
• Collaborative Bridge: Exceptional skills in navigating HQ and regional dynamics, serving as a "technical translator" between creative vision and factory execution.
• Strategic Judgment: Expertise in evaluating technical trade-offs and balancing innovation with commercial scalability.
• Consultative Communication: A trusted advisor capable of guiding stakeholders toward sound technical decisions while maintaining strong cross-functional relationships.

Attributes of a Successful Candidate

• The Technical Advisor: Recognized as the go-to resource for technical challenges and innovations.
• The Strategic Partner: Focused on the "how" and "why," ensuring a robust and scalable technical roadmap.
• The Alignment Specialist: Excels in bridging communication between teams, ensuring all technical details are clearly conveyed between locales.

About the Team

You will be joining a dedicated Footwear Development team in Zurich, functioning as a senior expert within the Performance Running category. This dynamic group, comprising engineers, developers, and makers, serves as the technical core of the brand.

The Zurich team connects Biomechanical Research, Material Science, Design, and Sourcing, grounding every innovation in technical reality before it reaches the athlete.

Our mission is to elevate the performance and technical attributes of our running footwear. We engineer the "ride" by collaborating with specialists who are passionate about creating the finest fitting and performing running products on the market.

We uphold a culture of technical rigor and "Swiss Engineering," consistently challenging the status quo to solve complex biomechanical challenges. Your role will be pivotal in ensuring that as the category expands, our technical standards and the performance essence of our footwear remain uncompromised.