Head of Engineering (All genders)

Zalando GmbH; Helsinki; Hybrid; EUR 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Relocation assistance for internationa

40% Zalando shopping discount

Extensive onboarding & mentoring

Job summary

Zalando GmbH is seeking a Head of Engineering for Partner Platform Tech in Helsinki. You will lead cross-functional engineering teams, define roadmaps, and coach engineers to raise performance and impact.

The role focuses on AI-enabled platforms, cloud-native systems and scalable services to empower Zalando partners and internal stakeholders. You will drive architectural strategy, foster an engineering culture of learning and innovation, and collaborate with product, data, and platform leaders

Qualifications

• 7+ years of leadership experience in international, cross-functional engineering teams.
• Experience building/scaleing mid to large-sized engineering organisations (>30 engineers).
• Strong background in cloud-native systems, distributed architectures and AI/ML-driven platforms.

Responsibilities

• Lead and grow multiple engineering teams across sites, esp. Helsinki.
• Shape roadmaps, provide technical direction and drive architectural excellence.
• Champion AI-native practices and generate measurable value for partners and customers.

Skills

People leadership

Cross-functional collaboration

Stakeholder management

Coaching & mentoring

Education

Bachelor’s degree in CS or equivalent

Tools

AWS

REST/GraphQL APIs

Scala/Kotlin/Java/TypeScript/Python

Job description

THE ROLE & THE TEAM

As the Head of Engineering for Partner Platform Tech (PPT) , you will lead a group of cross-functional engineers, hire and develop talent and collaborate with tech consulting to define roadmaps. You also provide technical leadership and coaching for engineers across the landscape while primarily focusing on the engineering team in Helsinki.

Zalando's PPT is a composable architecture of systems with several solutions providing software services that enable Zalando partners to manage their transactions with Zalando. It serves as the foundation for partners to do business successfully within the Zalando marketplace. As Head of Engineering, you will work in this dynamic environment with a talented and diverse workforce, delivering against roadmaps, aligned with our future-looking Zalando and Partner Tech target strategies.

As AI and Machine Learning become fundamental building blocks of modern commerce platforms, they will be an essential part of the future PPT offering. You will help shape how AI-powered capabilities, intelligent automation, and data-driven services are embedded into our products, architecture, and engineering practices, creating differentiated value for our partners and customers.

This position is to be based in Helsinki.

INCLUSIVE BY DESIGN

At Zalando, our vision is to be inclusive by design. And this vision starts with our hiring - we do not discriminate on the basis of gender identity, sexual orientation, personal expression, ethnicity, religious belief, or disability status. You are welcome to leave out your picture, age, or marital status from your application. We only assess candidates on their qualifications and merit.

We want to provide you with a great candidate experience. Feel free to inform us of any accommodations you may need, so we can best support you throughout the hiring process.

WHAT WE'D LOVE YOU TO DO (AND LOVE DOING)

Lead, manage, inspire and grow multiple teams. As a leader of leads and principal engineers, it will be your responsibility to coach your directs to become the best they can be. You will provide direction, guidance and amazing working conditions for cross-functional delivery that involve multiple engineering teams, serving a broad range of use cases. You will be accountable for the delivery of the long-term architectural roadmap and the reliable operation of the department's production software systems.

Engage with stakeholders and other leaders across the company and sites to deliver an outstanding product to satisfy the needs of our internal and external customers and stakeholders, especially our Brand and Retailer partners and system integrators.

Ensure that development of the systems is simplified and scales to the future needs and volumes of Zalando. Stay at the forefront of technology, including cloud-native platforms, AI, Machine Learning, developer tooling, and modern software engineering practices. Leverage existing platform capabilities, APIs, software services, and emerging technologies to build scalable, resilient, and cost-efficient systems capable of supporting Zalando's continued growth and innovation.

Drive the adoption of AI-native engineering practices and intelligent platform capabilities. Champion the responsible use of Machine Learning, Generative AI, and agentic systems where they create measurable value for partners, developers, and the business. Lead the evolution of our engineering organisation to leverage AI both as a product capability and an accelerator for software delivery, operational excellence, and developer productivity.

Help shape Zalando's engineering culture by attracting, developing, and inspiring exceptional engineering talent while fostering engineering practices that create remarkable impact for our customers and partners at scale. Encourage a culture of continuous learning, innovation, and AI-assisted engineering excellence.

You are an empathetic and egoless but passionate leader who excels at developing, coaching, and mentoring engineering leaders and engineers.

You have 7+ years of professional experience as a people lead in an international, cross-functional environment, as well as a proven track record building and scaling engineering teams within a mid or large scale organisation (over 30+ engineers) co-operating effectively over geographical sites.

You have a strong understanding of modern technology landscapes, supported by a solid technical background and multiple years of hands-on software engineering experience with technologies such as Scala, Kotlin, Java, TypeScript, or Python. You are familiar with distributed systems, cloud-native architectures, APIs, and modern software engineering practices.

You have experience working with systems in AWS cloud infrastructure.

Experience leading teams building AI- and ML-powered products and platforms is a significant advantage. Practical experience with agentic programming, Large Language Models (LLMs), production Machine Learning models, AI-enabled software architectures, and bringing intelligent systems into production is considered a strong bonus.

You have an extraordinary knowledge of fashion e-commerce systems. integration of those with the partners and serving their business transactions, e.g., for price, stock, order and logistics management.

Your drive and positive energy is contagious and you have a track record of helping and motivating teams to do their best and most effective work of their careers.

You possess an understanding of software delivery KPIs (release velocity, lead time, etc.) and how to influence them to create a high performing technology organisation with high predictability.

You have the ability to share and nurture technical ideas and direction across the organisation and a proven ability to influence decision making at all levels and in a variety of contexts.

You have experience working with different functions, experts, and levels of leadership.

OUR OFFER

Zalando provides a range of benefits, here’s an overview of what you can expect.

Culture of trust, empowerment and constructive feedback, open source commitment, meetups, game nights, 70+ internal technical and fun guilds, knowledge sharing through tech talks, internal tech academy and blogs, product demos, parties & events

Competitive salary, employee share shop, 40% Zalando shopping discount, discounts from external partners, centrally located offices, public transport discounts, municipality services, flexible working times, additional holidays and volunteering time off, free beverages and fruits, diverse sports and health offerings

Extensive onboarding, mentoring and personal development opportunities and an international team of experts

Relocation assistance for internationals