Sr. Manager, Software Engineering

Company Summary

Zoro.com is a leading eCommerce platform offering nearly 15 million tools, parts and supplies for our business customers. Launched in 2011, we brought a B2C-like experience to the B2B industry, and continue to be at the forefront of digital innovation at the intersection of technology and distribution. We have rapidly grown to over $1 billion in annual revenue and we’re just getting started!

Job Summary

As a Senior Engineering Manager on Zoro’s Foundational Engineering team, you'll provide strategic and tactical leadership to foundational platform services, ensuring technical excellence, reliability, and scalability. You’ll maintain Senior Software Engineer-level technical proficiency and occasionally contribute directly to high-impact engineering tasks, particularly around software quality and testing.

Duties and Responsibilities: 

• Strategic Vision and Technical Leadership:
• Set and execute strategic technical direction, emphasizing robust, scalable, and thoroughly tested foundational services compliant with industry standards (PCI/SOX/NIST).
• Maintain hands-on technical expertise, contributing strategically to critical engineering tasks and projects.
• Mentor team members in helping to resolve technical challenges and promoting best practices in software quality and testing.
• Ensure predictable, timely, and high-quality delivery of large-scale engineering initiatives through strategic planning, prioritization, and alignment with organizational goals and capacities.
• People Leadership and Team Development:
• Lead and mentor one or more engineering teams, nurturing a culture of technical excellence, inclusivity, and continuous improvement.
• Provide clear, actionable feedback and growth opportunities, promoting engineering best practices and rigorous testing standards.
• Operational Excellence:
• Champion process and tooling improvements, driving efficiency and minimizing technical debt through enhanced testing and operational practices.
• Ensure alignment of team capacity management and team initiatives with organizational priorities.
• Own and manage platform-related infrastructure costs and third-party tool contracts, ensuring leadership understands the cost/value proposition of various aspects of team spending.
• Cross-functional Collaboration:
• Collaborate closely with Architecture, Product Engineering, and Data Engineering teams to align on technical strategy, execution, and outcomes.
• Facilitate effective communication and decision-making across diverse stakeholders.
• Drive sound technical leadership decisions by communicating technical strategies and project statuses to technology leadership and stakeholders; adapting to the technical-level of a given audience and raising that level where possible through education and explanation.
• Incident Management and Reliability:
• Oversee proactive monitoring, incident response, and systemic improvements, emphasizing comprehensive testing and reliability engineering.
• Participate in enterprise-wide on-call rotation, leading engineers in addressing critical issues that occur in real-time.
• Drive the root cause analysis process to identify and address problems that cause unexpected incidents. Mentor and assist more junior managers in their RCA’s where necessary.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or equivalent practical experience.
• 8+ years of software engineering experience, including at least 4 years in engineering leadership roles.
• Proven ability to drive large-scale foundational engineering initiatives, aligning closely with business objectives and compliance requirements.
• Deep technical expertise with cloud-native infrastructure, distributed systems architecture, Infrastructure as Code, and container orchestration.
• Demonstrated proficiency at a senior software engineering level, directly contributing to complex, strategically critical technical initiatives.
• Experience implementing rigorous testing frameworks and reliability practices across large-scale platform services.
• Exceptional leadership and mentorship skills, with a proven record of developing engineering leaders and fostering high-performing, inclusive teams.
• Strong strategic communication and stakeholder management skills, able to articulate technical vision and translate complex strategies to various audiences, including senior business stakeholders.

Preferred Qualifications

• Advanced degree (Master’s or equivalent) in a technical field.<