Engineering Director - Ecommerce

About zooplus

With a legacy spanning over 25 years, zooplus remains a pioneering force in the pet e-commerce sector, passionately enhancing the experience of more than 12 million customers. Our culture thrives on collaboration and adaptability, continuously evolving to meet new challenges and deliver superior outcomes. Join us to combine your expertise with your enthusiasm for pets in a vibrant and supportive environment.

Role Overview

As the Engineering Director for the Acquisition & Retention division, you will spearhead the design, deployment, and refinement of advanced, large-scale software systems that boost customer acquisition and retention. You will lead engineering efforts supporting loyalty programs, pricing strategies, customer communications, data management, and growth initiatives. This position emphasizes both business impact and the enhancement of engineering practices to foster ownership, quality, and accelerated delivery timelines.

Primary Responsibilities

• Craft and drive the engineering vision aligned with business goals and customer-centric outcomes within Acquisition & Retention.
• Streamline and enhance the scalability of systems involved in loyalty, pricing, customer engagement, and data analytics.
• Elevate engineering processes in planning, execution, system architecture, quality assurance, reliability, observability, and incident response.
• Identify and implement practical applications of AI and automation to boost developer productivity and operational excellence.
• Balance immediate delivery demands with sustainable, maintainable technical solutions.
• Formulate a comprehensive strategy incorporating emerging technologies and AI-driven development methodologies.
• Safeguard architectural soundness and system scalability across all engineering projects.
• Institute performance metrics to track cycle time, mean time to recovery, deployment rates, and quality indicators.
• Manage operational and capital expenses within budgeting frameworks to ensure fiscal responsibility aligned with strategic objectives.
• Lead the enforcement of security, privacy, and regulatory compliance standards.
• Collaborate closely with Product, Design, Analytics, and Business units to create impactful customer experiences.
• Oversee talent acquisition, personnel development, and leadership growth within engineering teams.
• Promote a culture defined by innovation, openness, accountability, and continuous enhancement of skills and processes.

Key Tasks

• Ensure end-to-end execution of engineering initiatives that reflect targeted business outcomes.
• Advocate for AI-enabled Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) improvements such as automated code generation, intelligent code reviews, automatic documentation, and quality assurance frameworks.
• Guarantee system robustness, scalability, and monitoring enhanced by AI-based operational frameworks.
• Mentor and cultivate engineering leaders and architects to foster high-performance teams.
• Encourage extensive collaboration across geographic locations and technical domains to maximize effectiveness.

Success Indicators

• Defined engineering accountability and strengthened cross-team collaboration.
• Reliable delivery schedules accompanied by superior execution standards.
• Heightened system stability, monitoring capabilities, and operational rigor.
• Enriched organizational culture with elevated accountability, leadership quality, and technical decision-making.
• Accelerated advancement on customer and organizational priorities without jeopardizing technical integrity.
• Adaptable engineering infrastructure supporting sustainable growth in acquisition and retention.

Qualifications and Experience

• Proven experience in crafting and executing technical strategies across AdTech, MarTech, loyalty initiatives, pricing mechanisms, and customer data management; familiarity with analytics and social media platforms is advantageous though not essential.
• Expertise in enhancing engineering maturity in complex and expanding organizations, including clear system boundaries, ownership frameworks, and operational methodologies.
• Strong collaboration skills with product and business teams beyond purely technical leadership.
• Exceptional communication, discernment, and decision-making abilities to clarify complex problems.
• Proven capability to lead amid ambiguity, navigating dependencies and organizational change effectively.
• Solid architectural insights and experience in building scalable, stable, and adaptable systems.
• Hands-on experience with AI and automation technologies that elevate engineering productivity, including generative AI tools, automated quality assurance, and AI operations.
• 15+ years in software engineering with a minimum of 7 years managing sizable engineering teams comprising managers and architects.

Additional Information

Based in Munich with additional offices in Madrid, Krakow, Wroclaw, London, and Vienna, our multinational team enjoys a collaborative, trust-filled culture supporting hybrid work: approximately 60% onsite and 40% remote. Employees may also opt for up to 20 working days abroad in eligible countries annually.

Our comprehensive benefits include career development options, robust training, wellness initiatives, subsidized commuting or bike leasing, and a 20% discount on our products. We champion equal opportunities, valuing diversity and inclusion as central to our workplace ethos.