Lead, Kids Footwear Product Engineering

WHO YOU’LL WORK WITH

As a member of the Kid’s Footwear Team, you will collaborate with key functional partners both onshore and offshore. This includes teams in Footwear Product Development, Footwear Product Testing, Footwear Material Design and Development, Product Design, Product Management, Product Merchandising, Sourcing, Business Operations, Value Engineering, and our partners in Asia—both within NIKE and externally. You will need to navigate the NIKE matrix to ensure that our processes align with NIKE Footwear Engineering divisional and functional standards, effectively driving product excellence. You will serve as the primary point of contact for our Technical Asia teammates, ensuring clear and accurate communication during the product development, commercialization, and manufacturing processes.

WHO WE ARE LOOKING FOR

We are seeking a Kid's Sport FW Lead Product Engineer to join our Kid’s Division Footwear Product team, dedicated to creating the best footwear for our youngest athletes. As a member of the NIKE Kid’s Footwear team, you will utilize innovative approaches to develop new concepts, design products and processes, read and interpret technical drawings with confidence, and analyse process data to create refined product specifications. You will be involved in innovation projects, reviewing samples during product creation and commercialization to provide feedback that ensures cost-effective, high-quality deliverables meeting consumer expectations. Your role will also include developing new engineering best practices and updating existing ones to enhance quality, craftsmanship, performance, and efficiency.

The ideal candidate must be a self-starter, a quick learner, a strong communicator, a great teammate, and possess solid technical and leadership skills.

What you bring:

• Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Industrial Design, Mechanical Engineering, Chemistry, or a related field. Will accept any suitable combination of education, experience, and training.
• A minimum of 6 years directly relevant work experience
• Experience working in Footwear, Product Testing, Development, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent combination of education and experience and training.
• Navigate between obsessing about the product details/craftmanship and communicating with clarity your vision and ideas.
• Ability to communicate proficiently with multiple internal and external partners with in-depth high-level communication with positive energy.
• Be comfortable to start with a blank canvas, bridging traditional footwear practices inside or outside of NIKE, and be fearless to drive the future of NIKE footwear.
• An inclination to think out of the box, explore, learn, and find ways to innovate and improve the athlete experience, applying consumers insights, leveraging NSRL science, Virtual, Mechanical, and athlete testing and data analytics.
• Proficient in reading technical drawings, specs, design sketches and/or 3D digital files and link them together as a system approach to identify potential problems and/or challenges and provide complete problem-solving/options and solutions.
• Demonstrating understanding virtual and rapid prototyping methods such as CAD viewing and 3D printing. Knowledge of lasts, footwear pattern engineering, tooling, and manufacturing process highly preferred.
• Knowledge of materials, materials properties, test methods, and applications with clear understanding how they work together within our product creation process as a system versus a silo approach.
• Ability to identify & drive valuable engineering solutions from the conceptual stage all the way to manufacturing.
• Ability to lead and coach peers inside and outside the product engineering function with courage, and influence on mastering the fundamentals.
• Value differences and be able to work across cultures while navigating NIKE’s organizational matrix
• Digital literacy, including familiarity with Microsoft Office, Miro Board, spreadsheets, database management, and proficiency with 2D/3D CAD/CAM tools, and pattern engineering software, is a plus

WHAT YOU’LL WORK ON

This role focuses on product creation, from initial brief to commercialization, with an unwavering commitment to product excellence in terms of Craft, Fit, Comfort, Performance, Quality, Sustainability, Cost/Value, and Innovation. You will provide early recommendations and technical expertise to cross-functional teams on tooling, outsole and midsole compounds, plates, thermoplastic injection, product construction techniques, materials, manufacturing processes, sustainability, cost, and chemical engineering solutions (including processes, lab testing, MCS, MPS, etc.).

Your contributions will drive the continued growth of the team and the business, helping to forestall potential manufacturing, sustainability, or cost issues. Junior team members will depend on you to share your expertise and aid their understanding of footwear construction methods, manufacturing, chemical, and lab testing procedures. We count on you to provide a multi-solution approach and creative problem-solving to deliver sustainable product excellence for our consumers. Additionally, you will develop new engineering best practices and enhance existing practices to improve quality, craftsmanship, performance, and efficiency.