Purpose & Overall Relevance for the Organization
Global Engineering enables successful, efficient, and future-ready distribution centers across the adidas Group. The Senior Manager, Solution Engineering helps shape and deploy adidas’ global distribution center engineering strategy by driving design standards, supporting new technologies, benchmarking solutions, and partnering with regional engineering teams.
Key Responsibilities
- Define and continuously improve global standards for distribution center design, including facility layout, process design, and automation concepts.
- Develop scalable distribution center design and automation strategies based on business forecasts and volume scenarios.
- Drive standardization of material handling equipment, automation solutions, and distribution center processes across regions.
- Partner with Global Non-Trade Procurement on supplier and technology strategies.
- Lead or support feasibility studies and business cases for new distribution center builds, expansions, and automation investments.
- Facilitate new distribution center technologies with regional engineering, IT, and operations teams.
- Benchmark adidas distribution center concepts against best-in-class external solutions.
- Act as a technical advisor to regional engineering and distribution center management during design, implementation, and ramp-up.
- Support capital projects through engineering and material handling equipment workstreams from concept through commissioning and handover.
- Contribute to global engineering best-practice sharing, documentation, and capability development.
- Identify and evaluate warehouse process, layout, flow, utilization, packaging, and operating improvements, making fact-based recommendations.
- Evaluate labor management systems, including implementation, configuration, results analysis, and recommendations.
Knowledge, Skills and Abilities
- Experience in distribution center design, facility layout, process engineering, automation, and material flow.
- Ability to translate forecasts and operational requirements into end-to-end designs using CAD tools such as AutoCAD.
- Expertise in material handling and automation solutions, including ASRS, goods-to-person, conveyor, sortation, and AMR systems.
- Understanding of supply chain and logistics processes, WMS, WCS, and WES architectures.
- Experience with data analysis, capacity modeling, scenario evaluation, Lean, Six Sigma, Kaizen, 5S, labor management systems, and work measurement.
- Strong project management, communication, presentation, stakeholder mediation, and consensus-building capabilities.
- Advanced Excel, PowerPoint, and MS Project skills.
Minimum Qualifications
- Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in engineering, mechanical or industrial engineering, business administration with a supply chain or logistics focus, distribution engineering, or equivalent professional experience.
- Extensive experience in consumer goods, retail, or e-commerce distribution environments, preferably in international networks.
- Experience with automated and hybrid distribution centers.
- At least 5 years of engineering work experience, ideally in a distribution center environment.
- At least 2 years of management experience.
- AutoCAD experience is preferred.
- Willingness and ability to travel internationally frequently.
- Excellent English proficiency; additional languages are advantageous.
Benefits and Work Policy
adidas offers medical, dental, vision, prescription drug, disability, life and AD&D insurance, 401(k) and stock purchase plans with employer match, education assistance, paid parental leave, flexible time off, paid holidays, service time off, and performance-based annual bonuses.
This position follows a hybrid work policy requiring office attendance Monday through Thursday, with remote flexibility on Friday. The working location is Spartanburg, South Carolina.
adidas is an equal opportunity employer that supports diversity, inclusion, individual expression, and reasonable accommodations throughout the recruitment process.