Director Product Development (m/w/d)

BIRKENSTOCK is a global brand which embraces all consumers regardless of geography, gender, age and income. The company is deeply footed on a family tradition of shoemaking that can be traced back to 1774. With around 7100 employees worldwide, BIRKENSTOCK is the largest employer in the German footwear industry.

To ensure our quality standards, we produce over 95% of our products in Germany and source more than 90% of our materials and components from Europe. The BIRKENSTOCK Group is headquartered in Linz am Rhein and maintains several locations in Germany, as well as sales offices in Europe, North America, the Middle East and Asia.

Your Shoes To Fill

Lead and orchestrate a development team of technical developers, keen on finding product development solutions which are compliant with our core values: Functionality, Quality and Tradition. Leading, managing and monitoring projects all the way through the prototyping, 3D Construction, Mold Making, preproduction and bulk ready process.

You ensure the team generates effective tech packs of projects and ensure proper technical feasibility of inline products within our seasonal development timeline (as well as “beyond season”/ more complex and longer lasting projects.

Especially in the seasonal product development process you make sure that timelines and technical executions are managed tightly and handed-over properly and on time to the product engineering (industrialization). Together with the Director of Product Line Management and Director Design you will manage the seasonal KP Is and processes creating product with the affinity to optimize them constantly and where needed.

Additionally you will be deeply involved in the mold making process (prototyping phase) and steer internal and external tooling making partners and engineers and also constantly strive to improve the prototyping processes.

You bring deep and proven knowledge of footwear development projects across various construction types and sole technologies (mold const