Job
In this role, you will lead technical initiatives for departmental projects, design scalable architectures, and integrate autonomous agents into the software development process while coaching teams and setting technical standards.
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Your role in the team
- Reporting directly to the Director, you will move beyond a single team's scope to provide hands-on technical leadership for the entire department while also influencing engineering strategy, technical standards, and culture at the organizational level.
- You will be responsible for the architecture of the systems built within this area, serving as a key partner for Product and Engineering Management to ensure technology enables departmental objectives and business value.
- You will play a pivotal role in driving project delivery with an 'agent-augmented delivery' concept, shaping how our engineering teams integrate autonomous agents into the software development lifecycle.
- As a Principal Software Engineer, you own and drive technical design creation for mid-to-large scale projects, factoring in scale, reliability, and architectural constraints.
- You are a proactive member of the Principal Engineering Community, leveraging insights from across Zalando to set technical direction and raise the bar for engineering excellence within your department.
- Own technical design and end-to-end delivery of departmental projects.
- Drive the creation of robust technical designs for mid-to-large scale initiatives and maintain direct ownership of the implementation phase, taking an active, hands-on part in the development bearing sometimes full responsibility for implementation and delivery of robust, high-quality solutions across the entire project lifecycle.
- Partner with leadership to drive hands-on product solutions.
- Act as the primary technical point of contact for Product and Engineering Management, translating departmental objectives into concrete, deliverable software solutions through active participation in the development lifecycle.
- Execute through high-impact, hands-on engineering.
- Tackle the toughest engineering problems via significant code contributions, prototyping, and deep-dive troubleshooting to de-risk complex product features and maintain codebase mastery.
- Lead 'agent-augmented delivery' through practical implementation, ensuring the successful integration of autonomous agents and AI-assisted workflows directly into our engineering teams' daily delivery cycles.
- Strengthen departmental expertise through coaching and paired delivery.
- Onboard and mentor engineers by working alongside them on critical paths, acting as a Talent Champion while ensuring technical excellence in shared codebases.
- Drive operational excellence through active systems improvement.
- Proactively lead improvements in systems and processes, moving beyond reviews to implement enhancements that bolster production readiness and architectural scalability.
- Drive cross-departmental and organizational initiatives: Collaborate with other Principal Engineers and leadership to shape technical strategy, standards, and engineering culture at the organizational level.
Our expectations of you
Qualifications
- You are comfortable taking end-to-end ownership of mission-critical engineering initiatives and building a deep understanding of departmental domains quickly.
- Customer focus drives your problem solving approach.
- Your deep understanding of engineering excellence required in building customer-facing products at scale enables you to guide delivery, unblock projects through hands-on work.
- You are a proactive technical leader who builds deep understanding of new domains quickly and brings others along.
- You embrace end-to-end ownership and have guided teams through mission-critical engineering initiatives, creating clarity and enabling others to do their best work.
- You have exceptional leadership and communication skills, with clear proof points for inspiring teams and influencing technical and non-technical stakeholders at all levels.
- You have shaped and contributed to company-wide strategy and led teams through the aligned change management journey.
- AI is more than a buzzword to you, backed by concrete examples of how you leveraged new tools and methods to take delivery, quality, or engineering excellence to the next level.
- You have a proven track record of reporting to a Head of Engineering (or higher) and initiating impactful technical improvements across a department.
Experience
- Experience in agentic systems, AI-driven SDLC, or autonomous agent integration within engineering organizations.
- Proven experience developing solutions for regulated financial institutions or the payments/fintech space.
What we offer
- Zalando offers a range of benefits; here is an overview of what you can expect.
- Ask your Talent Acquisition Partner to learn more about what we offer.
- Hybrid working model with 60% remote per week, actual practice is up to each team to best support their collaboration.
- Work from abroad for up to 30 working days a year.
- 27 days of vacation a year to start.
- Relocation assistance available (subject to prior agreement).
- Family services, including counseling and support.
- Health and wellbeing options (including Gympass).
- Mental health support and coaching available.
Benefits
Work-Life-Integration
Health, fitness & fun
Food & drink
Topics you will work on
Job locations
About your employer
Zalando is the leading online fashion platform in Europe, connecting customers, brands, and partners in 17 markets. We offer the latest styles and trends from the best fashion brands around the world, all in one place. With Zalando, you can find the perfect outfit for any occasion, whether you're looking for casual wear, formal wear, or something in between. We also offer a wide range of sizes and styles to suit every customer's needs. Shop with us today and see why we're the leading fashion destination in Europe.
- Established Company
- Onsite, Hybrid, Full Remote
- Trade
Employer reviews
- Working conditions
- 4.4
- Team culture
- 3.5
- Engineering
- 3.1
- Career growth
- 2.6
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