Advanced Software Engineering Manager

Kroger•Blue Ash, OH

About The Position

We are seeking a Software Engineering Manager to lead teams and guide execution across high throughput microservices and data analytics platforms. You will play a key role in shaping technical strategy, driving delivery, and building strong engineering practices across application and data domains, analytics workflows, and reporting platforms. You will partner closely with product, architecture, and operations stakeholders to deliver backend systems that meet demanding performance, availability, and scalability requirements. This opportunity is ideal for someone who thrives at the intersection of platform engineering, data-driven systems, and people leadership. The Customer Platform is Kroger’s enterprise foundation for customer data, providing a centralized source of truth for Customer data. It brings together core data, capabilities, and cross‑functional teams to support both operational use cases and enterprise analytics. This position is for an Engineering Manager for the backend software engineering teams in the Customer Platform space. Direct & manage the software design, development, implementation & support of software engineering teams & lead engineering projects. Engage in technical design discussions & drive technical architecture. Manage multiple initiatives & be accountable for delivering multiple releases on schedule with the highest quality standards. Demonstrate the company's core values of respect, honesty, integrity, diversity, inclusion and safety.

Requirements

Bachelor's Degree computer science, information systems, or related technical field
High School Diploma or GED
Any understanding of & practice in agile software development & management
Any experience/familiarity with RDBMS, NoSQL, Big Data technologies
Any experience with web/app containers such as Apache/Tomcat, Jboss or related skill
Any direct technical experience in related disciplines
Any extensive experience building/deploying services and/or applications using: Java, Spring/Spring Boot, REST APIs, Swagger, Node, Azure, GitHub, CI/CD, Kubernetes
2+ years of experience in eCommerce, retails systems or high transaction software solutions
5+ years of experience in administrative management of technical teams and/ or extended staff
Excellent communication, collaboration, reporting, analytical & problem-solving skills
Strong leadership & negotiation skills with business & technical group

Nice To Haves

Master's Degree computer science, information systems, or related technical field
Any experience developing and/or architecting front-end experiences React, Swift (native iOS), Kotlin (native Android)
Any of experience developing and/or architecting cloud-hosted backend services with Azure and/or GCP
2+ years of experience in leading engineering teams of 5+ engineers & coaching, mentoring individuals to grow their career
8+ years of software engineering experience, including prior experience managing backend software engineering teams across application and/or data platform domains.
Experience leading teams responsible for mission-critical or customer-facing platforms operating at scale.
Demonstrated experience managing, mentoring and coordinating large onshore and offshore teams across engineering and analytics initiatives.
Experience balancing people leadership, technical direction, delivery management, and platform evolution across both application and data domains.
Strong collaboration skills to work cross-functionally with business stakeholders, architecture, analytics teams, and engineering leaders to define strategy and deliver large-scale distributed platforms
Experience driving modernization initiatives spanning microservices architecture, data platforms, and engineering process maturity.
Strong technical background in backend microservices development, service design, API-driven systems, event-driven patterns, large-scale data processing, transformation, data analytics, and reporting workflows.
Experience with distributed data platforms and databases, including scalability, performance optimization, reliability, and governance considerations.
Strong understanding of software engineering fundamentals, SDLC practices, and operational excellence.

Responsibilities

Partner & collaborate with engineering peers, product management, product design, & third parties (as appropriate) to prioritize deliverables providing the greatest value to our customers and business
Hire & manage engineers & application system analysts; assign, direct, & evaluate their work/performance by writing performance reviews & providing feedback
Present practical input for strategic technology decisions; synthesize complex problems & present simple, practical, reliable, & maintainable solutions
Drive strategic alignment of system specifications, associate requirements, & project schedules of technology services
Responsible for systems performance & resolution of production incidents, which may require 24hr/7day week coverage
Work with Product Management to prioritize, scope & plan business milestones
Support preparation of technology roadmap & provide input to business roadmap
Monitor new technologies & trends within the industry
Improve technology agility facilitating the use & creation of Cloud Services, REST APIs, design patterns, Behavior Driven Development (BDD), Test Driven Design (TDD), Continuous Integration (CI)/Continuous Deployment (CD), version control, proper environment releases, etc.
Drive root-cause analysis of critical business & production issues to prevent future occurrences as well as review/approve potential solutions
Establish performance standards & procedures, regulatory compliance & conduct ongoing performance audits & take action
Must be able to perform the essential job functions of this position with or without reasonable accommodation