Engineering Manager, CRM Tech(m/w/x)

# Engineering Manager, CRM Tech (all genders) - Lounge by Zalando **Berlin** | **Full time** # THE ROLE & THE TEAM As an Engineering Manager for CRM Tech, you will lead and inspire a talented, multidisciplinary team composed of CRM Technology Specialists and Software Engineers (including Mid-level to Principal Engineers). You will be responsible for the technical strategy, execution, and operational excellence of our Lounge CRM Messaging Tech Stack and underlying communication infrastructure, primarily leveraging Braze and focusing on areas like back-end architecture and personalization techniques. Your leadership will be crucial in driving effective automation and outstanding customer experiences, all while fostering a culture of engineering excellence, ownership, and innovation suitable for a team that influences its own back-end tech stack and tackles complex CRM challenges collaboratively. # INCLUSIVE BY DESIGN At Zalando, our vision is to be the leading pan-European ecosystem for fashion and lifestyle e-commerce - one that is inclusive by design. We only assess candidates based on qualifications, merit, and business needs. We welcome applications from people of all gender identities, sexual orientations, personal expressions, racial identities, ethnicities, religious beliefs, and disability statuses. We only want to know why you’re great for this role, so please avoid including your picture, age, and marital status in your CV as well. We want to provide you with a great candidate experience. Please feel free to inform us of any accommodations you may need, so we can best support and assist you throughout the hiring process. # WHAT WE’D LOVE YOU TO DO (AND LOVE DOING) * **Lead and Develop a High-Performing Engineering Team:** Build, mentor, coach, and empower a diverse team of CRM technologists and software engineers. Foster an inclusive, collaborative engineering culture that values technical excellence, continuous learning, ownership, and innovation. Encourage a startup mindset within the team. Drive team performance, support individual career growth (from mid-level to principal engineers), and champion healthy team dynamics. * **Drive CRM Tech Strategy and Architecture:** Define and execute the technical vision, strategy, and architectural roadmap for our CRM messaging tech stack (primarily Braze) and its backend communication infrastructure. Partner closely with Principal Engineer and technical specialists to shape this vision. Champion best practices in software development (Kotlin/Java), data engineering, microservices, automated QA processes, and cloud solutions (AWS) to build scalable, reliable, and efficient systems. Guide strategic decisions on integrating third-party solutions with in-house developments. * **Deliver Impactful CRM Capabilities:** Oversee the engineering delivery of features and systems that enable advanced CRM automation, sophisticated personalization techniques, efficient content retrieval, and seamless template management. Ensure all solutions adhere to marketing compliance and data privacy standards. * **Champion Operational Excellence:** Take full ownership of the operational health and performance of the CRM tech stack. Establish and monitor SLOs/KPIs, drive improvements in system reliability and efficiency, and lead incident management and resolution. Proactively identify and implement optimizations for cost and performance. * **Facilitate Technical Decision-Making and Communication:** Empower your team in their technical decisions and ownership of their code. Act as a key technical representative in broader discussions, adept at translating complex technical topics for non-technical business stakeholders to facilitate informed decision-making. * **Collaborate and Influence:** Build strong, collaborative relationships with Product Management, Commercial CRM, Data & AI teams, other engineering leaders, and external vendors (like Braze). Effectively communicate technical strategies, updates, and challenges to stakeholders at all levels, including senior leadership. # WE’D LOVE TO MEET YOU IF YOU HAVE * **Proven Engineering Leadership:** Significant experience as an Engineering Manager or a Technical Lead with direct people management responsibilities. A track record of building, developing, and retaining high-performing, healthy engineering teams that include senior/principal engineers. * **MarTech & CRM Expertise:** A strong background in marketing technologies and systems, with deep technical understanding of CRM platforms and their backend architecture. Hands-on experience with Braze or similar market-leading CRM platforms is highly desirable, along with an understanding of how to leverage such platforms for personalization and automated communication flows. * **Software Engineering Acumen:** A solid grasp of modern back-end development (ideally with experience in Kotlin/Java environments), data engineering principles, microservice architecture, and cloud-native solutions (AWS strongly preferred). * **Strategic & Architectural Thinking:** The ability to not only define a technical vision but also to collaboratively develop it with senior engineers and guide its implementation for complex CRM systems. * **Operational Rigor:** Experience in managing the operations of critical systems, including setting up monitoring, defining SLOs, and leading incident response. * **Fostering Innovation and Agility:** Experience in cultivating an agile environment that encourages a startup mindset, autonomy, and proactive problem-solving within the engineering team. * **Excellent Communication Skills:** Superb verbal and written communication skills in English, with an ability to articulate complex technical topics and solutions concisely and simply to both technical and non-technical audiences. * Stakeholder Management: Proven ability to manage and influence a diverse set of stakeholders, confidently communicating with technical peers, commercial teams, and senior leadership. **NICE TO HAVE** * Experience specifically with direct communication channels like email, push notifications, in-app communication, and SMS. * Familiarity with QA automation strategies and tools.