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Head of Engineering - Customer Experience

Location: Zurich

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Technology

In short

At On, the most exciting and fastest-growing global sports brand, we are looking for a Head of Engineering – Customer Experience to lead the teams responsible for On’s end-to-end Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) digital experience across web and app. This role is central to shaping how millions of global customers discover, consider, engage, and shop with On.

You will manage multiple engineering teams (ICs + Engineering Managers), drive technical excellence, partner closely with Product & Design, and ensure On delivers a premium, unified, and connected customer experience. You will act as a key technology leader within the Commercial Tech cluster and be responsible for providing technical leadership and direction for the design, development, implementation, and maintenance of our technology stack.

Your entrepreneurial and result-driven mindset, combined with strong hands-on technical oversight and execution skills, will make you a key member of the core team on which On’s future is built.

Your Mission

Lead with Vision — and with Code

Guide and grow multiple engineering teams dedicated to building On’s core DTC experiences
Shape the direction, roadmap, and focus of your teams in partnership with Product, Design, and senior leadership.
Stay deeply hands-on: participate in architectural reviews, design complex systems, and challenge technical decisions with clarity and purpose.
Ensure alignment with On Tech’s architecture north star and long-term platform strategy.

Build Premium Digital Experiences

Own the delivery, quality, and technical excellence of systems powering web and app experiences used globally.
Drive predictable execution—breaking down work, managing uncertainty, eliminating blockers, and supporting teams through delivery.
Maintain high operational resilience by enforcing SLOs, incident response standards, and engineering best practices.
Raise the bar for how we test, deploy, measure, and iterate across the stack.

Shape Culture and Grow Talent

Foster an engineering culture rooted in curiosity, feedback, openness, and accountability.
Champion On’s values, tech principles, and spirit through role modelling.
Coach and mentor engineers and leaders, growing high performers and giving constructive guidance where needed.
Lead and own hiring decisions, always raising the talent bar and improving our interview process together with recruiting.

Collaborate and Communicate with Influence

Tell clear, compelling technical stories — translating complexity into clarity for stakeholders at all levels.
Drive alignment across teams and domains, creating shared understanding and coordinated outcomes.
Build deep partnerships across engineering, product, design, and external collaborators.
Contribute actively to engineering leadership forums and cross-functional initiatives.

Connect Engineering Work to Business Impact

Understand the customer journey and the KPIs that matter — and map engineering investments directly to elevating our experience.
Operate with a holistic platform mindset, ensuring solutions scale, simplify, and unlock future velocity.

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Your story

Proven experience leading multiple engineering teams (ICs + EMs) in fast-paced, product-driven environments
A strong technical foundation with hands-on experience across web, mobile app, and customer-facing digital products
Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills — you simplify complexity and create alignment across functions
A track record of delivering high-impact products at scale with predictability, quality, and clear outcomes
Experience shaping architecture, influencing engineering principles, and driving strong technical governance
A passion for coaching, mentoring, and developing talent, and for nurturing a healthy, high-performing engineering culture
Ability to navigate ambiguity, drive decisions, and align distributed teams around a shared mission
A startup mindset — resourceful, iterative, bias-to-action, willing to try, learn, and adjust quickly
An entrepreneurial spirit — you think in terms of value, ownership, and long-term product leverage, and you act like an owner
Collaborative, humble, and energized by On’s mission to ignite human spirit through movement

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About the Team

As you might expect from a running brand, the wider Commercial team at On is a fast-paced place to be. You will work in the diverse Commercial platform team as part of Commercial Technology. You will collaborate with roles including Software Engineers, QA Engineers, Product Managers, Data Analytics, Retail, Commercial and others of stream-aligned or platform teams that are located in Berlin, Zurich and London.

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What we offer

On is a place that is centered around growth and progress. We offer an environment designed to give people the tools to develop holistically – to stay active, to learn, explore and innovate. Our distinctive approach combines a supportive, team-oriented atmosphere, with access to personal self-care for both physical and mental well-being, so each person is led by purpose.

On is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We are committed to creating a work environment that is fair and inclusive, where all decisions related to recruitment, advancement, and retention are free of discrimination.

Build the better you

What to expect

We want to set everyone up for success, so here’s the lowdown on how we hire. Our process is a two-way street – bringing you into our culture, while helping us learn how you think.

Our full process can last about eight weeks from application to offer, because we care about getting it right. These steps explain how we usually do things.

Before you get started, feel free to consider if you want to work with us. Strange question? Well, we give people a lot of space to navigate their day-to-day and that style isn't for everyone. We want you to be passionate about what you do and be sure this is the right fit. Because when skills and passion combine – it creates that 'Wow' moment.