Senior Director, Footwear Engineering

Department: Footwear Product Creation

Reports to: Vice President, Product Development and Engineering

Location: Portland, OR

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.

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.

• 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…