Senior Specialist – LightSpray Footwear Developer in Zürich

In short

As a Lead Lightspray SMU Footwear Developer, you will be a driving force at the forefront of On’s product evolution for the Lightspray range.

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 complexity, manage key stakeholder relationships, and translate visionary concepts into scalable, performance-driven products.

Your Mission

• Lead and own the end-to-end creation of SMUs and Special projects within the creation organization.

You will manage multiple Lightspray projects independently, from initial strategy and conception through to product sign-off, ensuring alignment with cross-functional teams to ensure company goals.

• Through the lens of Special Projects, you will leverage your expertise in manufacturing processes, material properties, and Lightspray product construction to develop a product aligned with our strategy.

With a strong root-cause analysis mindset, you will tackle challenges in tooling, molding, and assembly, and develop new materials, colors, and new product specifications.

• Act as the primary liaison between global development hubs Zurich and Vietnam, aligning on roles, responsibilities, and prototyping timelines.

Collaborate closely with internal stakeholders across Product Management, Sourcing, and Design during regular validation meetings.

• You will collaborate with computational designers, footwear developers, and product managers and designers to ensure the seasonal calendar for SMUs meets the needs of the business, coordinate complexity through PLM and with our Asia partners, and drive development timelines to meet critical calendar milestones.

Your Story

• 5+ years of progressive experience in footwear development, with a significant focus on standard inline creation processes.
• Knowledge of footwear manufacturing processes, including tooling, molding, injecting, welding, lasting, and assembly.

You understand factory capabilities, tolerances, and limitations, and know how to design for scalable replication.

• A natural technical curiosity and a robust, root-cause analysis approach to problem-solving.
• In-depth, demonstrated knowledge of advanced footwear materials, their properties, and performance characteristics, including experience with advanced testing and analysis.
• 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 with a high degree of autonomy, navigating ambiguity, y and making independent judgments on complex and significant issues.
• Comfortable and proficient with industrial machinery and hands-on prototyping.
• High levels of English language proficiency are highly regarded.
• Ability to travel up to 10-15% of the time.

Your Team

On’s Lightspray Creation 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.