Principal Software Engineer - Partner Tech (all genders)

THE ROLE & THE TEAM

In this role as Principal Software Engineer, you will guide multiple teams within the Partner Tech department. Partner Tech is one of the core organisations within Zalando. We are responsible for sourcing fashion products and consumer goods into Zalando. Through our platform and tools, we provide a wide range of products to customers all over Europe. 

The organization is composed of more than 300 talented individuals who are dedicated to creating the best platform and inspiring opportunities for multi-million euro fashion brands and physical retail stores, connecting them with consumers across multiple European markets.

You will be responsible for elevating architectural and software engineering standards, mentoring engineers, and leading platform engineering initiatives. As a key member of the leadership team, you will collaborate closely with Engineering Managers, other Principal Software Engineers and Product Managers. If you are enthusiastic about software, platform engineering, architecture, and driving business impact, we encourage you to apply. 

INCLUSIVE BY DESIGN

If you think you have what it takes, we encourage you to apply even if you don't meet every single requirement. You may just be the right candidate for this or other roles!

At Zalando, our vision is to be the leading pan-European ecosystem for fashion and lifestyle e-commerce – one that thrives on diversity and is truly inclusive by design. We believe that diverse teams fuel innovation and creativity, and we actively seek out talent from all backgrounds.

We actively seek to reduce bias in our hiring and employment processes, focusing on your qualifications, skills, and contributions. To support this, we kindly ask that you refrain from including personal details such as your photo, age, or marital status in your CV, ensuring a fair and equitable evaluation based solely on your abilities and potential.

We are committed to providing an exceptional and accessible candidate experience for everyone. If you require any accommodations to support you throughout the hiring process, please let us know – we are here to assist you.

Discover more about our commitment to creating a diverse and inclusive workplace: https://jobs.zalando.com/en/our-culture/diversity-and-inclusion

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

• You will define and drive the long-term technical vision and architecture for a scalable platform approach to Partner Lifecycle Management, exploring and implementing a platform-oriented approach to ensure scalability, reliability, security, and cross-team adoption.

• You will break down complex solutions into iterations to reduce risk and complexity, and ship large scale projects to production by driving, mentoring, designing and  code contributions.

• You will contribute to improving the operational excellence of the systems owned by the department. You will drive or provide hands-on support for time critical investigation during incidents.

• You will act as a sparring partner to tech and product leadership by researching, proposing, and driving pragmatic solutions that improve developer productivity, operational effectiveness, and overall engineering impact. This includes experimenting with and evaluating emerging AI-powered engineering tools.

• As part of our Principal Engineering community, you collaborate with other senior individual contributors to set engineering standards, guide decision-making for the technology landscape at Zalando. 

• You will elevate engineering excellence by mentoring engineers at all levels, guiding complex technical decisions, and actively sharing expertise across teams to strengthen our broader engineering and science community.

WE’D LOVE TO MEET YOU IF

• You have demonstrated experience defining and driving long-term architectural vision for complex domains, ideally transforming business capabilities (such as Partner Lifecycle Management or similar ecosystems) into scalable, platform-oriented solutions adopted across multiple teams.

• You bring deep expertise in designing resilient, secure, and scalable distributed systems in AWS-based infrastructures, with strong experience in Kubernetes and modern platform patterns.

• You have solid command of JVM based languages (Scala, Kotlin, Java).

• You have a proven track record of leading large, ambiguous initiatives from concept to production, decomposing them into iterative deliveries while staying hands-on in architecture and critical implementations. You excel at driving cross-organizational collaboration, aligning technical strategy with business priorities and customer impact.

• You have substantial experience improving operational excellence in production systems, leading operational reviews, driving post-mortems, implementing reliability frameworks (SLOs, observability, incident management), and supporting critical investigations when needed.

• You are curious and forward-looking, with experience evaluating and responsibly adopting emerging technologies, including AI-powered engineering tools, to enhance developer productivity and system effectiveness.

OUR OFFER

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.

• 27 days of holiday a year to start for full-time employees

• 2 paid volunteering days a year

• Hybrid working model with up to 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

• Employee shares program

• 40% off fashion and beauty products sold and shipped by Zalando, 30% off Lounge by Zalando, discounts from external partners

• Relocation assistance available (subject to prior agreement)

• Family services, including counseling and support

• Health and wellbeing options (including Wellhub, formerly Gympass)

• Mental health support and coaching available

• Drive your development through our training platform and biannual peer-to-peer review

Learn all about Zalando and our values here: https://jobs.zalando.com/en/?gh_src=22377bdd1us