Engineering Manager (Backend)

Location: Hybrid within Germany or the UK, with occasional office attendance required. Work from abroad is available for up to 30 working days per year. Relocation assistance is available subject to prior agreement.

Company

hirify.global is an independent company within the Zalando Group that develops e-commerce technology for fashion brands and online retailers.

What you will do

• Lead, mentor, and grow a team of 5–8 software engineers.
• Build resilient backend services and high-throughput integrations at scale.
• Contribute approximately 40% hands-on to technical design, architecture, and implementation.
• Partner with Product Management to translate customer needs and strategic objectives into actionable delivery plans.
• Resolve technical and interpersonal challenges and support pragmatic, inclusive decision-making.
• Share engineering practices, post-mortem findings, and knowledge across teams.

Requirements

• Proven experience leading and coaching high-performing software engineering teams.
• Strong technical expertise in enterprise web applications using Java, Kotlin, or Python.
• Willingness to remain technically involved in design, architecture, or implementation.
• Experience with AWS or other cloud platforms and building reliable, resilient services.
• Ability to balance business value, effort, and technical debt using evidence and data.
• Excellent verbal and written English communication skills.

Culture & Benefits

• Flexible hybrid working model and work-life balance support.
• 27 days of vacation per year for full-time employees.
• Employee shares program and discounts on Zalando products and external partner offers.
• Two paid volunteering days per year.
• Family services, health and wellbeing options, and mental health support and coaching.
• Training offerings and biannual peer-to-peer reviews for professional development.