Senior Tooling 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. 

We are seeking a Senior Tooling Engineer to join our team based in Ninh Binh, North Vietnam. This role will be critical in supporting Global Sourcing & Manufacturing’s initiatives on leading the tooling engineering execution of footwear products from concept through commercialization. This role ensures product toolings engineering meet performance, quality, manufacturability, cost, and timeline targets while collaborating closely with design, development, material, costing, manufacturing and factory partner teams.

The position plays a key role in translating creative concepts into production-ready footwear while maintaining brand standards and driving product innovation.

You will need to possess solid footwear tooling knowledge and the ability to work with functional team and our partner to 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 higher, or an equivalent combination of education, experience, or training.

• Minimum of 6 years of directly applicable footwear tooling engineering experience

• Strong technical expertise in footwear construction including lasts, bottom tooling and test methodologies.

• Demonstrated experience driving innovation through the Product Creation Process.

• Proven ability to lead tooling engineering initiatives or strategies across broader footwear teams or functions.

• Team player and can work in an environment with high interdependencies between teams and cross-cultural colleagues.

• Good communication skills in both spoken and written English.

As a Tooling Engineer you will work directly with factory tooling team, moldshop for all tooling related work, collaborate with Manufacturing Engineers to conduct related stock-fit trials and support all the tooling daily work. As an accountable person of tooling development, you will work directly with Headquarters (HQ) Developer and Designer to lead tooling development from Asia side, by collaborating with Asia development team. You’ll also work with other functions in Asia such as Planning, Costing and Chemical teams on tooling authorization and making, confirming bottom components defective rate, responsible for tooling output and confirmation process. This position reports to the Senior Director, Partner Product Development & Engineering Global.

You will work on converse footwear products, driving product and process excellence within a collaborative, cross functional environment. You will translate project briefs and 2D design tech packs into physical footwear samples that meet athlete, consumer, and business needs while providing technical leadership across Product Creation teams. You will:

• Review tooling blueprint revisions. Hold meeting, discuss with factory and mold shop to ensure balance of design intention and production excellence.

• Provide technical solutions and manufacturability feedback on mold design or processes during development stage.

• Lead tooling trials, review and confirm all the tooling related data (Cycles, Defective Rate)

• Manage tooling quality at shoe factory to keep A grade component being made.

• Work with line manager to support assigned department goals and projects.

• Elevate factory tooling team’s technical capabilities.

• Collaborate closely with global and regional partners to ensure consistent execution and clear communication.