Manager, Software Engineering - Retail Systems (Omni)

ALO•San Ramon, CA

7d•$188,000 - $235,000

About The Position

Mindful movement. It’s at the core of why we do what we do at ALO—it’s our calling. Because mindful movement in the studio leads to better living. It changes who yogis are off the mat, making their lives and their communities better. That’s the real meaning of studio-to-street: taking the consciousness from practice on the mat and putting it into practice in life. Overview We’re seeking an experienced Engineering Manager to lead our Retail Systems engineering team. Own the technical vision, roadmap, and delivery of systems that power Alo’s store operations and omnichannel retail experiences. Work at the intersection of retail technology, store launches, physical store operations, and platform reliability. Partner closely with internal teams and external vendors to ensure store systems are scalable, reliable, and operationally effective. This role requires strong technical judgment, hands-on architecture experience, and proven people leadership in a retail/store systems context, with a pragmatic mindset for real-world store environments.

Requirements

9+ years of software engineering experience, with 2+ years in an Engineering Manager or people-manager role.
Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.
Strong domain experience in Retail systems, store operations, and omnichannel commerce.
Experience delivering and operating store-facing systems such as POS, inventory receiving, and order fulfillment.
Experience integrating with ERP, OMS, loyalty platforms, POS systems, and third-party vendors.
Strong understanding of distributed systems, event-driven architecture, idempotency, retries, eventual consistency, and transactional patterns.
Hands-on architectural experience with microservices using REST/gRPC APIs.
Experience with relational databases and appropriate use of NoSQL systems (e.g., Oracle, MySQL, DynamoDB).
Familiarity with event-streaming platforms such as Kafka.
Proven ownership of system reliability, monitoring, alerting, and operational metrics.
Experience with observability and alerting tools such as Splunk and New Relic.
Experience shipping software in cloud environments (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and container orchestration (Kubernetes).
Working knowledge of modern engineering stacks (Java/Spring, Node.js, Python) and CI/CD tooling.
Understanding of payment processing, settlement, taxation, and retail compliance considerations.
Experience with omnichannel retail workflows including store fulfillment, ship-from-store, buy-online-pick-up-in-store (BOPIS), split shipments, cancellations, and returns.
Demonstrated ability to hire, develop, and retain high-performing engineering teams.
Strong ownership mindset with accountability for customer, store, and business outcomes.
Data-driven decision maker with a bias for action and pragmatic engineering judgment.
Excellent cross-functional communication and stakeholder management skills, including presenting to senior leadership.
Collaborative, empathetic leader with strong conflict-resolution skills.
Comfortable operating in fast-paced, imperfect retail environments where store impact and customer experience are paramount.

Responsibilities

Lead, grow, and coach a team of engineers (ICs and senior engineers), fostering a high-performance, ownership-first culture.
Recruit, retain, and mentor strong engineering talent; run performance reviews and career development plans.
Promote engineering excellence, accountability, and continuous learning across the team.
Own the Retail Systems technical roadmap and delivery, aligning priorities with business, store operations, and omnichannel goals.
Translate complex business and operational requirements into scalable, reliable, and maintainable technical solutions.
Provide architectural and technical leadership for store-facing systems including POS, inventory receiving, and omnichannel order fulfillment (ship-from-store, BOPIS, returns, cancellations).
Deep dive into technology requirements for store launches and expansions, including localization, regional compliance, taxation, and operational readiness where applicable.
Own technical readiness for store launches, including go-live planning, cutover execution, launch checklists, and post-launch hypercare.
Support date-driven store launches, including after-hours or weekend cutovers when required.
Partner closely with Retail Operations, ERP, Franchise Management, Store Operations, Product, and Finance.
Collaborate directly with store managers and store teams to understand operational pain points and deliver pragmatic, easy-to-adopt technology solutions.
Ensure systems work effectively in physical retail environments, including POS systems, store hardware, peripherals, and unreliable network conditions.
Partner with Operations to support training, rollout communication, and adoption of new store-facing tools.
Evaluate, RFP, and select external vendors and technology partners that meet both current and future retail requirements.
Own technical relationships with third-party vendors, including reliability, SLAs, performance, and risk management.
Assess vendor lock-in risks and ensure systems are designed with resiliency and exit strategies.
Establish and monitor service-level objectives (SLOs/SLAs); reduce order failures and improve MTTR.
Oversee monitoring, alerting, and observability across retail systems using tools such as Splunk and New Relic.
Own on-call rotations, incident management, postmortems, and continuous improvement initiatives.
Plan and execute for peak retail events (promotions, holidays, major launches) and enforce change discipline during critical retail windows.
Drive best practices for testing, CI/CD, release management, and infrastructure-as-code.
Ensure accuracy, auditability, and reconciliation of inventory, order, and financial data across store systems, ERP, and order platforms.
Maintain strong security, access controls, and compliance standards for systems used in physically accessible store environments.
Manage technical debt while ensuring platform stability, security, and compliance.