Head Of Engineering

In short

We are establishing a Global Technology Center in China to serve as a strategic R&D and innovation center for next-generation retail and commercial platforms. As Head of Engineering, you will be responsible for building, leading, and scaling this hub, owning the end-to-end engineering strategy, execution, and talent agenda. This role combines deep technical leadership, organizational building, and global stakeholder management. You will operate at the intersection of China’s highly advanced retail ecosystem and our global technology platform, delivering software products that power markets across the globe. You will report into global technology leadership and act as a key member of the Global Engineering Leadership Team. 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

Your mission is to build a world-class engineering organization in Shanghai, China that delivers globally scalable, locally excellent retail technology platforms. You will:

Establish China as a center of excellence for retail innovation Lead the development of proprietary, self-owned global platforms Ensure China-based teams operate as first-class global product teams Balance China-specific depth with global platform standardization Build an engineering culture rooted in technical excellence, ownership, and global impact

Lead with Vision — and with Code Lead and scale multiple engineering teams responsible for building globally critical retail and commercial platforms from China. Shape the technical direction, platform roadmap, and execution focus in close partnership with Product, Architecture, Security, and Global Tech Leadership. Stay deeply hands-on: participate in architectural design, challenge system boundaries, review complex trade-offs, and guide critical technical decisions with clarity and conviction. Ensure all platforms align with the global architecture north star, long-term platform strategy, and regulatory requirements across regions. Act as a visible technical leader who sets the bar for engineering excellence, ownership, and quality.

Build Global Platforms with China-First Innovation Own the delivery, quality, and technical excellence of globally deployed platforms built and operated from the China Tech Hub. Lead the development of self-owned, modular, and scalable architectures that combine: Deep local innovation leveraging China’s advanced retail and technology ecosystem. A unified global core enabling rapid localization across APAC, EMEA, and AMER. Drive predictable execution by breaking down complex initiatives, managing uncertainty, and unblocking teams to deliver consistently at scale. Maintain high operational resilience by enforcing SLOs, incident response standards, security practices, and platform reliability expectations. Continuously raise the bar for how teams design, test, deploy, observe, and evolve production systems.

Shape Culture and Grow World-Class Talent Build and nurture a high-performing engineering culture rooted in technical rigor, ownership, openness, and continuous learning. Champion global engineering values and principles through visible role modeling and decision-making. Coach and mentor Engineering Managers and senior engineers, developing strong technical leadership and succession pipelines. Own hiring strategy and decisions for the China hub, consistently raising the talent bar in a highly competitive market. Establish clear career paths, expectations, and feedback loops that enable engineers to grow and thrive.

Collaborate and Communicate with Influence Tell clear, compelling technical stories—translating complex systems and trade-offs into clarity for senior stakeholders. Drive alignment across global engineering, product, and business teams, ensuring shared understanding and coordinated execution. Build trusted partnerships across regions, functions, and cultures, operating effectively in a highly distributed global environment. Represent the China Tech Hub in global engineering leadership forums, architectural reviews, and cross-functional initiatives.

Connect Engineering Work to Business Impact Understand the end-to-end commercial and retail journey, and connect engineering investments directly to scalability, speed, cost efficiency, and business outcomes. Operate with a platform-first mindset, ensuring solutions simplify the ecosystem, reduce duplication, and unlock future velocity. Balance short-term delivery needs with long-term technical health, ensuring sustainable growth of global platforms.

Your story

Proven experience leading multiple engineering teams (ICs and Engineering Managers) within complex, fast-moving, product-driven organizations operating at global scale. A strong technical foundation with hands-on experience designing and evolving large-scale e-commerce platforms, including customer-facing, transactional, and backend commerce systems. Demonstrated experience architecting and delivering Point of Sale (POS) platforms and solutions, including system design for in-store operations, payments, and omnichannel integration. Deep understanding of distributed systems, platform architecture, and integration patterns, with systems operating across regions and regulatory environments. Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills—you translate technical complexity into clarity, influence decision-making, and create alignment across engineering, product, and business leadership. A consistent track record of delivering high-impact platforms and products with predictability, quality, and measurable outcomes. Experience shaping system architecture, influencing engineering principles and technical standards, and driving strong governance without slowing teams down. A genuine passion for coaching, mentoring, and growing engineering leaders, and for building a healthy, high-performing engineering culture. Comfort navigating ambiguity, making high-judgment calls, and aligning distributed, cross-regional teams around a shared mission and technical vision. A builder’s mindset—resourceful, pragmatic, and execution-oriented, with a bias toward learning fast and iterating intelligently. An entrepreneurial spirit—you think in terms of platform leverage, long-term value, and ownership, and you act like a true steward of the technology and the organization. Collaborative, grounded, and energized by building platforms and teams that deliver real global business impact. Fluent in English and Mandarin and able to operate confidently in cross-cultural environments.

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.

• Step One

  It starts with you...

  You'll start by submitting your application to a specific role. We try to keep this step as simple as possible. We do get a lot of applications, but we review them all. If you're a good fit to the role, a recruiter will follow up with you directly. If you didn't receive a reply, or were unsuccessful this time around, we encourage you to look for other possible matches at On.

• Step Two

  Interview with a recruiter

  What ignites your spirit? This is where we’ll start getting to know all about you and what makes you tick – and it’s your first chance to get a feel for our culture. Chatting with a member of our talent team, you’ll learn more about On and how we work. We’ll learn about what motivates you and what you could bring to the team.

• Step Three

  Interview with a hiring manager

  Ready to dig into the details? This second interview will be held with your future manager and will focus on the specifics of the job. Together you’ll delve into your unique skills and experiences and how they could be relevant at On. It's also a time to assess how you might feel working side-by-side. Bring any questions you have about the job, the team or anything else you might like to know – this is an open forum.

• Step Four

  The Case Study

  What's your style? This task will help us understand how you think, face a challenge and give insight into your novel ideas. Designed to give everyone their best shot, your case study is based on something you might typically experience on the job. This is your chance to show us what you’ve got. So express yourself. Be you.

• Step Five

  The Experience Day

  Your first taste of the Oniverse. This is a time to meet some of the people you'll be working closest with. In person or virtually, you'll get a feel for the day-to-day at On and the people who make it happen. You'll chat with a few potential teammates - the conversations will be as equally driven by the role and your experience as by our values. We believe how you do things is just as important as what you do.

• Step Six

  The Result

  Are we a good fit? We’ll get together internally to share our feedback and decide if we’re a match. We know that job searching is a big time investment, so it’s not a decision we take lightly. It’s also time for you to reflect on the experience – are we the right place for you? No matter the outcome, we’ll give you meaningful feedback.

Step One:

It starts with you...

You'll start by submitting your application to a specific role.

We try to keep this step as simple as possible. We do get a lot of applications, but we review them all. If you're a good fit to the role, a recruiter will follow up with you directly. If you didn't receive a reply, or were unsuccessful this time around, we encourage you to look for other possible matches at On.