Senior, Industrial Engineer - Converse

Are you interested in working for the most iconic and well-loved sneaker brand in the world? Born in sports and made for the street, Converse is a place to explore your potential, obliterate boundaries and push out the edges of what can be. We seek people who can lead, grow, think, dream, and create. Our culture thrives by embracing diversity and rewarding imagination. Converse seeks achievers, leaders, and visionaries. At Converse, it is about each person bringing their authentic self, skills, and passion to serve the daring spirit of youth. 

The goals of the Converse Global Sourcing & Manufacturing team are to Deliver Product Excellence, bringing to life and to market products that blow away consumer expectations and create the Manufacturing Network of the Future with capabilities to support our business. We believe this is possible by partnering with best-in-class manufacturers and investing in the right talent to: 

• Build capabilities to create innovative products that push the boundaries of our brand.

• Deploy responsive supply chain solutions that improve speed and deliver meaningful commercial impact.  

• Advance the resilience and sustainability of our supply chain through partner, performance, and risk management approaches. 

• Constantly improve our operational model to improve service, efficiency, cost, and quality

•  Live our values and put people first to drive organizational effectiveness. 

You will be the point person for the Industrial Engineering (IE) function who manages factory partners in North Vietnam, and support a large, diverse team of Converse with Industrial Engineer/Lean expertise and report to Manager, Industrial Engineering Global – Converse, based in China.

We are seeking a Senior Industrial Engineer to join our team based in Ninh Binh, North Vietnam. This role will be critical in supporting Global Sourcing & Manufacturing’s initiatives on Factory Efficiency Management, by working with Industrial Engineering function & factory partners to leverage IE & LEAN knowledge and tools, optimize the manufacturing process and eliminate production waste to achieve the efficiency target. 
The role will take the lead in creating & maintaining Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to manage factory partners’ performance around efficiency by analyzing and identifying the inefficiency opportunities and taking corrective actions to elevate overall factory manufacturing efficiency, in collaboration with factory partners and Converse functions. 
You will need to possess solid IE Lean knowledge and the ability to coach the IE team within our partner factories develop their capabilities and cultivate a continuous improvement culture. You must be an effective communicator, team-player, and out-of-the-box thinker who can work cross-functionally and independently to succeed in this role.

• Bachelor’s degree or above in Industrial Engineering or a related Engineering discipline.

• 6–8 years of relevant experience in Industrial Engineering, Lean Manufacturing, Product, or Engineering roles within the footwear industry.

• Strong expertise in IE and Lean methodologies, with a proven ability to apply them creatively to improve efficiency, quality, and scalability.

• Lean Manufacturing and/or Six Sigma certification is a plus.

• Demonstrated self‑motivation and ownership, with the ability to proactively identify problems, generate innovative ideas, and drive improvements with minimal supervision.

• Strong project management, critical thinking, and problem‑solving skills, with experience leading cross‑functional initiatives from concept to implementation.

• Collaborative team player who can work effectively in environments with high interdependencies across functions and cultures, while constructively challenging the status quo.

If this is you, you will be spending around 80% (or more) of your working time in factories, initially learning the processes and products, building strong connections with the team, and then driving and supporting the factory team to identify short-term, mid-term, and long-term efficiency strategies. You will also be responsible for coaching and providing expertise for factory partners’ efficiency improvement initiatives to ensure key deliveries are made.

• You will take the lead in initiating, managing, and implementing Optimization & Manufacturing excellence projects that can deliver measurable contributions through increased manufacturing efficiency and speed while embedding Industrial Engineer & Lean Manufacturing Principles to enable sustainable improvements. 

• You will support creating & refine metrics to measure manufacturing efficiency performance and drive for optimization, ensuring KPI data is properly tracked and managed.

• You will facilitate workshops or ideation sessions by leveraging Lean methodology/tools, to identify process wastes, to develop and implement corrective actions. 

• You will be the IE/Lean expert with an adequate ability to develop the factory Industrial Engineering team’s technical capabilities through effective IE/Lean training and support factory partners in building a culture of continuous improvement and manufacturing excellence.

• You will also take the lead to support new factories ramping up, setting up production lines in a more efficient and adapted way based on product needs; assessing equipment and machine layouts, workflow, and safety precautions to maximize utilization of plant and manufacturing facilities.

• Besides, you will support Converse functions projects or company initiatives focused on efficiency study & improvement, including Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE), Digital transformation, Labor Utilization, Hourly Capacity, and Pairs per Person per Hour (PPH).