Head of Engineering - Echo

ABOUT THE ROLE

The Zalando eCommerce Platform Sciences team assists customers in their fashion discovery journey and helps them find what they are looking for across Zalando. In the echo department we drive the vision of having Zalando be the place for customers to discover quality content, find personalised inspiration and make a truly deeper connection. We are transforming the content discovery systems, utilising innovative approaches and building inspirational experiences for our customers. 

As a Head of Engineering, you will lead the engineering department that will allow customers to explore and discover fashion in a unique style. You will partner with your Product counterparts to define and deliver new ways to discover fashion and lifestyle across all Zalando experiences.

Teams at our Zurich Tech Hub work on many of the cornerstones of our Fashion Store, including personalization and recommendation components. Through full stack engineering and research, we turn visionary ideas into new emerging businesses with real potential. By tackling diverse challenges for the fashion industry, we drive the personal digital experience and underlying knowledge models to create the most inspirational fashion experience for our customers.

WHERE YOUR EXPERTISE IS NEEDED

• Lead the engineering department that helps customers discover quality content, find personalised inspiration and have deeper engagement with Zalando.

• Scale up the teams building innovative solutions leveraging latest in machine learning technologies including generative AI and large language models. 

• Support and lead teams in achieving a high level of engineering quality, throughput, performance and reliability.

• Drive operational excellence as part of your team culture. 

• Work with other Zalando leaders across disciplines to design and drive the future of our core frontend infrastructure, and outline the vision and strategy for your area.

• Recruiting great engineers, growing and developing the area and its teams.

• Provide leadership and development to engineers and engineering managers in the team to help them grow and progress in their careers.

WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR

• You are experienced in building complete product experiences from backend, data, frontend & ML engineering

• You are experienced leading a continuous delivery culture, and a track record of owning large scale engineering systems from design through deployment to production.

• You have led teams that developed, owned and operated critical infrastructure.

• You have excellent verbal and written communication skills in English with an ability to articulate complex technical topics and solutions in a concise and simple way.

• You have successfully recruited for and built great teams.

• You are an inspiring leader of leaders who thinks big and acts fast with an eye to customer needs.

• Our values resonate with you.

• Zalando provides a range of benefits, here’s an overview of what you can expect. Ask your Talent Acquisition Partner to learn more about what we offer.

• Employee shares program

• 40% off fashion products sold and shipped by Zalando

• 2 paid volunteering days a year

• Hybrid working model with 60% remote per week

• Work from abroad for up to 30 working days a year

• 27 days of vacation a year 

• Relocation assistance available (subject to prior agreement)

• Family services, including counselling and support

• Health and wellbeing options 

• Mental health support and coaching available

PERKS AT WORK

• 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, great IT equipment, 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