The Role
Lead engineering strategy for footwear, ensure product meets quality standards, influence manufacturing, and collaborate across teams to drive innovation and sustainability goals.
Summary Generated by Built In
Department: Footwear Product Creation
Reports to: Vice President, Product Development and Engineering
Location: Portland, OR
Your Opportunity at ARC’TERYX:
As our Senior Director of Footwear Engineering, you will build our engineering strategy to ensure every product meets the high performance and quality standards that our athletes deserve. You will heavily influence the creation and manufacturing of all models throughout the product creation cycle, from innovation through production. You will deliver recommendations on organizational structures and processes needed to support all technical aspects of footwear product creation and manufacturing, across our teams in Portland, Vancouver and Asia. You will collaborate with your cross-functional partners in both the Footwear and Supply Chain teams to develop best practices, establish toolboxes, and ensure the necessary processes are in place to guarantee performance, quality and profitability. You will drive engineering excellence by building an engineering organization over time and by influencing developers, designers and other cross-functional partners. You will help evolve our product creation strategy and capabilities to enable Arc’teryx’s 2028+ organizational vision, and will partner with counterparts in Hardgoods, Accessories, and Apparel as well as with engineering teams in our sister brands to support this vision. Our manufacturing partners will be key stakeholders for you; you’ll work closely with them to drive product and process excellence, and to bring our innovation and in-line product strategy to life. Finally, you will partner with our Footwear Leadership and corporate Sustainability teams to help develop and drive a sustainability agenda to support Arc’teryx’s circularity and sustainability goals and corporate mission to “Leave it Better”.
This role is based out of our Portland office. Candidates must be eligible to work in the US.
Meet Your Team
Our Product Creation Development team is a dynamic group spread across the globe. It sits within our Supply Chain organization and is a center of excellence partner with our Footwear Business Unit. The Arc’teryx Footwear team creates innovative, aesthetically striking product that exceeds the core mountain athlete’s outdoors needs across climbing, hiking, and trail running categories. We are builders, problem solvers and passionate outdoor enthusiasts. Fueled by curiosity, we take an immersive approach to identifying our athlete’s future needs – then, build, test, and validate products that solve for real functional challenges. We are a passionate collective with a focus on collaborative teamwork, and our vision is to redefine the industry
If you were in the role of Senior Director, Footwear Engineering at ARC’TERYX, here’s what you’d be working on:
- Building our global long-term vision for all Engineering functions, including product engineering, cost engineering, and manufacturing engineering.
- Owning performance and quality excellence throughout our product line, by influencing the design of new products to ensure manufacturability, performance and margin targets are met
- Establishing toolboxes and best practices for all models
- Acting as a critical thought partner to Supply Chain and Footwear Leadership Team as we evolve our teams’ strategic priorities.
- Collaborating with the Footwear and Sourcing leadership teams to establish and execute a medium to long-term partner strategy grounded in product excellence, on-time delivery, quality, and risk mitigation.
- Developing recommendations on our future organizational structure and the technical resources needed to support growth, and hiring the technical talent needed to address current and future needs.
- Fostering deep, collaborative partnerships with Tier 1 and Tier 2 partners to ensure Arc’teryx’s standards and processes are agreed upon and followed. You will establish technical metrics and scorecards in collaboration with Supply Chain and Footwear team partners and develop a regular cadence of reviewing and acting upon them.
- Collaborating with cross-functional stakeholders and establishing and driving a footwear innovation agenda. You will recommend an approach to finding solutions to the technical aspects of all projects, including leveraging teams in Portland and North Vancouver, external resources, and with Tier 1 partners in Asia.
- Providing a strong point of view on and heavily influencing our Sustainability agenda and our corporate mission to “Leave It Better”.
- Driving profitability goals through collaboration with all Footwear and cross-functional stakeholders (including Sourcing, Materials, etc.) and establishing a system by which margin targets, cost breakdown, sheets and other financial and technical data are scrutinized and reviewed.
- Leveraging your deep functional expertise to educate, coach and mentor others
Here are some of the things you could be working on in the future:
- Developing and/or identifying the digital tools and processes need to lead us into the digital future
- Fully resourcing a team of technical talent in Portland and/or Asia to support our recommended growth plan
- Developing opportunities and programs to develop technical talent across Amer brands
- Evolving our organization and processes to ensure we are well positioned for our next phase of growth
Are you our next Senior Director, Footwear Engineering?
- You have 15+ years’ experience in a technical aspect of the footwear industry (engineering, development, manufacturing, etc.), ideally with extensive experience in manufacturing environments in Asia
- You have proven experience building engineering systems, structures, and teams from the ground up, and can lead an organization through scale and growth You have strong influential leadership, with the ability to drive alignment across diverse cross-functional stakeholders at all levels of the business
- You set a clear vision, align your team around common objectives, and foster commitment to these objectives
- You have an in-depth knowledge of footwear construction, foams and rubbers, pattern making, manufacturing, costing, lasts, and materials
- You have proven skills in interpreting design intent and product innovation
- You have proven performance history with domestic and offshore vendors and manufacturers
- You have excellent communication skills - interpersonal, written and verbal
- You are entrepreneurial with the ability to make decisions and take calculated risks
- You are proactive in identifying the root cause of issues and developing solutions
- You remain highly flexible and adaptable when faced with ambiguity
- You effectively balance autonomy and collaboration
- You inspire breakthrough thinking and continuous improvement
- You seek the best (sometimes not the easiest) solutions, with an unwavering commitment to do what is right
- Your passion for sustainability is paralleled by your passion for getting outside and living it
Equal Opportunity
Arc’teryx is committed to actively creating and fostering a culture of inclusivity where voices are heard, people are seen, and values are respected. We care about the uniqueness of our applicants, employees, and guests, and we do so in a safe space fueled by curiosity and acceptance.
Creating an inclusive workplace is connected to our core values, while also having the added benefit of helping make our business better. We believe inclusion helps us to create a healthier, happier workplace, drive creativity and innovation, and reflect the communities where we operate.
All applicants, employees, and guests can expect equality of opportunity and fair treatment in alignment with our values:
Leave it Better. We believe that the mountains transform us, that how we adventure matters, and that there’s always a better way. Join us in creating positive change in ourselves, our communities, and the world.
Live it. Get out there - the mountains make us better.
Disruptive evolution. In pursuit of better. Always.
Commit. We set bold objectives and see them through.
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The Company
What We Do
Arc’teryx is a global design company based in North Vancouver, B.C. that specializes in technical high-performance outerwear and equipment. We design and manufacture a wide range of mountain sports outdoor apparel and equipment for all conditions and experiences, including mountaineering, ice and rock climbing, skiing, snowboarding, and trail running. Our company is built on a passionate and relentless commitment to design, craftsmanship and performance. We have a unique construction process that enables us to create technical products that can be trusted to perform at the point of extreme need. We are uniquely positioned in our industry as we have our own factory located in New Westminster, BC, which enables us to build products with a meticulous focus on detail and performance. We leverage this manufacturing knowledge and share it with our global partner factories. In the Coast Mountain Range behind our headquarters and design centre in North Vancouver, we field test our products in real world conditions allowing us to create the best-fitting, longest-lasting, highest-performing technical products available. We distribute our outerwear and equipment through more than 3,000 retail locations worldwide, in over 40 countries globally, including 38 branded and outlet stores in Europe, North America and Asia. The company started with six employees in 1989 and now has more than 1000 employees in Canada.
