Senior / Lead Applied AI Engineer- AI Labs

On; Zürich; Hybrid; CHF 140,000 - 200,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid work arrangement

Relocation support

Job summary

On is seeking a Lead Software Engineer to anchor backend, data, and applied-AI architectures within the AI Lab and Emerging Technology Incubation team in Zurich. The role blends early-stage product exploration with engineering rigor to deploy scalable, production-grade systems and tools.

You will design resilient AI-native infrastructure, spanning streaming runtimes, memory structures, and retrieval pipelines, while ensuring cloud-native, secure, observable foundations that scale across

Qualifications

• Proven experience building production-grade multimodal agentic systems.
• Experience navigating enterprise cloud infrastructure (GCP) and aligning stakeholders.
• Strong foundations in Python (FastAPI, Pydantic, asyncio) and/or TypeScript (NestJS).

Responsibilities

• Lead backend, data, and applied-AI architecture across incubation ventures.
• Contribute across frontend and mobile surfaces to ship cohesive vertical slices.
• Design core infrastructure for real-time, low-latency systems and evaluation frameworks.
• Establish cloud-native, secure, observable platforms
• Collaborate with Product, Design, and Research to translate hypotheses into scalable software.

Skills

Multimodal systems

GCP/GKE

Python

TypeScript

PostgreSQL

Docker

Kubernetes

React

Flutter

API design

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

PostgreSQL

pgvector

FastAPI

Pydantic

asyncio

NestJS

React

Flutter

Job description

At On, everything is deeply rooted in innovation and human movement. Within the AI Lab and Emerging Technology Incubation team, the focus centers on exploring, prototyping, and building frontier digital products and agentic systems that help everyday people build a joyful, lifelong relationship with movement while transforming organizational operations.

This Lead Software Engineer role serves as a core technical anchor across backend, data, and applied-AI architectures, blending early-stage product exploration with the engineering rigor needed to deploy scalable, production-ready systems. This position reports to Senior Lead - Staff Software Engineer for AI Labs.

Your Mission

• Navigate from ambiguity to production: Lead the backend, data, and applied-AI architecture across emerging incubation ventures while contributing across frontend and mobile surfaces to ship cohesive vertical slices. Partner closely with Product, Design, and Research to translate early-stage hypotheses into structured domain models, clear technical RFCs, and production-ready applications.
• Architect Resilient AI & Real-Time Systems: Design and construct the core infrastructure for interactive, multimodal agentic experiences, spanning low-latency streaming runtimes, tiered agent memory structures, hybrid retrieval pipelines, and programmatic evaluation frameworks.
• Bridge Incubator Agility with Enterprise Scale: Validate user value at early-stage speed while establishing cloud-native (GCP, GKE), secure, observable foundations that transition smoothly into platforms across wider engineering clusters.
• Champion Principled AI-Native Engineering: Leverage frontier AI tooling and coding agents to explore unfamiliar domains rapidly, pairing velocity with strict type safety, deep system comprehension, and maintainable code that elevates engineering standards across the squad.
• Cultivate Cross-Functional Collaboration: Serve as a collaborative technical partner across teams in Zurich, prototyping partners in London, and cross-functional stakeholders, shaping both strategic product direction and technical execution.

Your Story

• Proven experience building production-grade multimodal agentic systems, including components such as tiered agent memory, multimodal ingestion, RAG, real-time voice or streaming pipelines, tool integration protocols (such as MCP), and automated evaluation workflows.
• A degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related technical discipline, or equivalent practical experience.
• Demonstrated track record operating in high-ambiguity environments with a strong product mindset, paired with experience navigating enterprise cloud infrastructure (GCP, GKE) and aligning stakeholders through architectural RFCs.
• Strong engineering foundations in Python (FastAPI, Pydantic, asyncio) and/or TypeScript (NestJS), with depth in relational and vector data modeling (PostgreSQL, pgvector), event-driven architectures, and API design.
• Practical background in building and scaling distributed backend systems, alongside the adaptability to support frontend/mobile applications (React, TypeScript, Flutter) or container infrastructure (Docker, Kubernetes) when initiatives require it.
• A collaborative mindset skilled at partnering with Product, Design, and Research to shape early concepts into reliable software solutions.
• A self-directed learner driven to explore emerging technical domains and tackle complex, evolving problems.
• Valued additions:
• Familiarity with real-time multimodal streaming runtimes (such as LiveKit, WebRTC, Gemini Multimodal Live, OpenAI Realtime, or ElevenLabs) and low-latency interaction patterns (barge-in handling, prefetching, asynchronous tool dispatching).
• Experience collaborating with external technology partners or working within health, human movement, or advanced R&D incubation settings.

Your Team

We make dreams a reality. The Innovation team thinks beyond sports and footwear. Every day, we ask ourselves how we can create a better world, life and experience for everyone. Teamwork makes it happen. We’re experts in engineering, sport science and design operating very much like a research laboratory. Together, we challenge the limits of what’s possible — creating solutions that shape not only the future of On but the industry.

What We Offer

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. This is a hybrid role working 3 days a week in the Zurich office. We can support relocation for this role.