Croma - Senior Engineering Manager

Key Responsibilities

1. Engineering & Architecture Leadership

• Lead the design, development and modernization of enterprise-scale applications and distributed services.
• Define and drive scalable, resilient and maintainable application architectures.
• Establish engineering standards covering coding practices, design principles, performance, security, observability and reliability.
• Review and challenge solution architecture and technical designs proposed by internal and partner teams.
• Drive adoption of modern engineering practices across the technology landscape.

2. Hands-on Application Engineering

• Design and develop backend services using Java, Spring Boot, Python and/or Node.js.
• Build scalable microservices and distributed services for high-volume retail workloads.
• Develop and maintain RESTful APIs and API-driven integrations.
• Design reusable services and components following modular and domain-oriented architecture principles.
• Troubleshoot complex application, integration and performance issues and provide hands-on technical guidance to engineering teams.

3. Microservices & Distributed Systems

• Design and implement microservices-based architectures.
• Define service boundaries, communication patterns, resiliency and fault-tolerance mechanisms.
• Design systems for scalability, high availability and performance.
• Apply appropriate patterns for synchronous and asynchronous communication.
• Drive modernization of legacy applications and monolithic systems into scalable distributed services.

4. Event-Driven Architecture & Integration

• Design and implement event-driven architectures using messaging and streaming technologies.
• Develop asynchronous integrations using platforms such as Kafka, RabbitMQ, Azure Service Bus, IBM MQ or equivalent.
• Design enterprise integrations across OMS, WMS, TMS, SAP ERP, Payments, CRM, Loyalty, Store Systems, Carriers and other third-party platforms.
• Ensure reliable message processing, error handling, retry mechanisms, idempotency and integration observability.

5. Cloud-Native Engineering

• Design and build cloud-native applications and distributed services on Azure or equivalent cloud platforms.
• Drive containerization using Docker and Kubernetes.
• Leverage cloud-native services for compute, messaging, storage, API management, monitoring and integration.
• Drive application scalability, resilience, performance and cost optimization.
• Promote infrastructure and deployment automation through CI/CD and DevSecOps practices.

6. Domain Platform Ownership

Provide technical ownership and engineering leadership for one or more retail/supply-chain platforms based on the candidate's area of expertise, such as:

• IBM Sterling OMS - order orchestration, fulfilment, inventory, returns and omnichannel order management.
• Blue Yonder WMS - warehouse execution, inventory, replenishment, picking, packing and dispatch.
• TMS / Transportation Platforms - transportation planning, carrier integration, shipment execution and last-mile processes.

The candidate is not expected to have deep expertise across all three platforms. Strong hands-on expertise in one domain, together with the ability to understand and integrate with adjacent platforms is expected.

7. Data & Database Engineering

• Strong SQL skills for application development, troubleshooting and data analysis.
• Design efficient data access patterns and database interactions.
• Diagnose data inconsistencies and performance issues across distributed applications.
• Work with relational and NoSQL databases where appropriate.
• Ensure data integrity, consistency and appropriate transaction management across distributed systems.

8. Production Engineering & Reliability

• Own production stability and technical health of critical applications and platforms.
• Lead RCA and resolution of critical incidents.
• Improve application observability through monitoring, logging, tracing and alerting.
• Establish performance, availability and reliability engineering practices.
• Drive proactive identification and resolution of technical debt and recurring production issues.

9. Engineering Delivery & Vendor Management

• Lead implementation and technology partners delivering engineering solutions.
• Own technical governance, delivery quality and engineering standards across partner teams.
• Review partner architecture, code quality, technical approaches and implementation plans.
• Drive SLA adherence, delivery timelines and quality metrics.
• Provide technical direction to partner teams while retaining hands-on ownership of critical engineering decisions.

10. Stakeholder Management

Work closely with:

• Product and Business teams
• Supply Chain and Warehouse Operations
• Store Operations
• ERP / SAP teams
• Enterprise Architecture
• Infrastructure / Cloud
• Information Security
• Data & Analytics
• Implementation partners

Translate business requirements into scalable technical solutions and communicate complex technical decisions effectively to senior stakeholders.