Senior Manager, Software Engineering - Global Forwarding Technology

C.H. Robinson•Remote, MN

20h•$127,500 - $295,900•Hybrid

About The Position

C.H. Robinson is seeking a Senior Manager, Software Engineering, to join our Global Forwarding team. This leadership role involves providing day-to-day direction for engineering teams, developing and mentoring technical talent, and partnering with product, business, and technology leaders to deliver innovative solutions. The position is responsible for leading high-performing engineering teams that design, build, and support complex software solutions across application platforms and integrate third-party technologies. The ideal candidate is a strategic and forward-thinking leader who will help shape the engineering roadmap, drive modernization and automation initiatives, and champion the adoption of AI-driven solutions to improve efficiency, scalability, and customer outcomes. The ideal candidate is a proven people leader and technical bar raiser who fosters a culture of innovation, engineering excellence, and continuous improvement, with a strong understanding of automation, AI technologies, and modern software engineering practices, coupled with the ability to align technical strategies with business objectives and deliver results in a fast-paced, global environment. This role can be based only in MN, IL or Kansas City.

Requirements

7 +years of experience working on a software engineering team progressing in complexity and responsibility
4+ years of experience leading and managing software engineering teams
Experience delivering business-critical software functionality in complex enterprise environments
Experience leading software delivery in an agile or product-oriented environment
Experience managing systems integrations, distributed systems, APIs, and interactions between custom and commercial technologies
Demonstrated experience leading engineering teams through ambiguity, complex dependencies, and changing priorities
Experience partnering with product, business, architecture, and operations leaders to shape strategy and delivery
Experience communicating status, technical tradeoffs, risks, and strategy to senior leadership audiences
Demonstrated ability to connect engineering investments and technical decisions to business outcomes
Proven ability to develop engineers, technical leaders, and emerging people leaders
Strong understanding of modern software engineering practices, architecture, testing, reliability, security, and software delivery
Bachelor’s degree or a minimum of 4 years of equivalent work experience and a high school diploma/GED

Nice To Haves

Master’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Human-Computer Interaction, Business, or related field
Experience with ERP, TMS, freight forwarding, supply chain management, transportation, or other complex operational systems
Experience leading teams that build highly automated, high-volume transactional workflows
Experience applying generative AI, large language models, intelligent automation, or agentic technologies to business workflows
Experience leading teams experimenting with or deploying AI-powered applications, including tool/function calling, retrieval-augmented generation, workflow orchestration, intelligent agents, or AI-assisted decision support
Understanding of enterprise AI considerations including evaluation, observability, security, privacy, governance, human oversight, and responsible deployment
Experience using AI-assisted software development and agentic engineering tools to improve developer productivity and delivery speed
Experience leading modernization of legacy platforms while maintaining critical business continuity
Experience with architectural concepts such as Domain Driven Design, event-driven architecture, distributed systems, APIs, and SOLID principles
Experience with cloud-native architecture and platforms such as Azure, AWS, or GCP
Experience working in a product-led organization and applying lean principles to product development
Strong strategic orientation, business acumen, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills with the ability to evaluate broad organizational and technical impacts
Demonstrated ability to create an environment that encourages innovation while maintaining accountability for production quality and delivery
Effective and flexible communication skills with the ability to articulate complex technical and business concepts in a clear and relatable way
Strong interpersonal skills including the ability to build trust, influence, and foster relationships across diverse teams and functions
Demonstrated experience consulting, influencing without authority, negotiating, resolving conflict, and escalating when necessary
Ability to thrive in a fast-paced, decentralized, matrixed, global environment
Excellent organizational, planning, and execution skills with the ability to manage multiple competing, high-priority initiatives
Ability to lead, motivate, and inspire cross-functional and globally distributed teams
Ability to connect the work teams are doing to strategic business priorities and measurable outcomes
Experience leading through organizational and technology change
Growth mindset with demonstrated experience giving and receiving feedback
Ability to motivate and encourage change and drive positive outcomes in a large, dispersed organization

Responsibilities

Partner with product, business, operations, and technology leaders to define strategy across Global Forwarding capabilities and ensure engineering teams are aligned to the highest-value business outcomes
Lead engineering teams responsible for modernizing and automating complex Global Forwarding workflows across areas such as pricing and rating, carrier contracts, shipment planning and execution, booking, visibility, documents, and operational workflows
Collaborate with cross-functional leaders to move opportunities from discovery through delivery and into production, balancing speed, scalability, technical quality, and business value
Identify opportunities to apply automation, AI, large language models, and agentic technologies to reduce manual work, improve decision-making, and create more scalable Global Forwarding operations
Partner with senior engineers and architects to establish practical patterns for AI-enabled workflows, including human-in-the-loop design, evaluation, observability, security, governance, and appropriate guardrails
Encourage teams to experiment with emerging technologies and AI-assisted development tools while maintaining strong engineering discipline, production readiness, and measurable business outcomes
Help define product and technology vision in the context of established Global Forwarding business goals and evolving strategic opportunities
Build and maintain technology roadmaps that connect engineering investments to measurable business outcomes
Define and communicate technical and organizational strategy while ensuring product stability, scalability, reliability, and security
Lead teams through ambiguity and evolving priorities, helping translate broad business opportunities into clear engineering objectives and incremental delivery plans
Work across Technology teams and domains to recruit expertise, resolve dependencies, remove roadblocks, and prevent duplication of capabilities
Drive reuse of common platforms, services, patterns, and automation capabilities across the Global Forwarding technology ecosystem
Identify additional technical resource needs across teams and raise awareness early to support timely delivery and realization of value
Balance investment between new strategic capabilities, modernization, technical debt reduction, production health, and ongoing business commitments
Manage disputes and competing priorities between technical teams to maintain progress against shared goals
Build and maintain technology product roadmaps with an emphasis on repeatable, scalable, secure solutions, continuous improvement, and speed of delivery
Manage escalated technical and operational issues and ensure appropriate ownership and resolution
Engage and assist other teams in high-priority incidents
Follow enterprise goals around HPIs and critical/major outages
Address production issues with a sense of urgency while driving systemic improvements that reduce recurrence
Ensure teams meet quarterly commitments while maintaining flexibility to respond to changing business priorities
Ensure defects and production issues are resolved within identified levels of service
Establish strong engineering practices around architecture, testing, observability, security, reliability, and software delivery
Encourage creativity, experimentation, and collaboration without organizational boundaries while maintaining accountability for delivery
Establish, maintain, and communicate clear measures that quantify progress against goals and objectives through effective presentations, scorecards, and business outcome reporting
Partner with business stakeholders to connect committed technical work to business outcomes and communicate the impact of delivered capabilities
Represent engineering strategy, progress, risks, and tradeoffs effectively with senior leadership audiences
Build strong relationships across Global Forwarding, enterprise technology, and adjacent technology organizations to support cross-domain initiatives and shared capabilities
Partners with Talent Acquisition to establish a pipeline, recruit, select, and onboard qualified and diverse engineering talent
Builds leadership depth and succession plans across the organization, developing engineers and emerging leaders who can take on broader technical and people leadership responsibilities
Manages annual merit programs for assigned teams to align compensation with performance results
Builds a deep understanding of the skills, strengths, development areas, and career aspirations across the team
Aligns team members’ strengths and interests with organizational needs and commits to consistently providing feedback, development opportunities, coaching, and recognition
Creates opportunities for senior engineers to lead complex technical initiatives, influence architecture, mentor others, and operate across team boundaries
Develops teams capable of operating with increasing autonomy while maintaining clear accountability and alignment to strategic priorities
Aligns team performance to C.H. Robinson’s strategic objectives and cascades communication on divisional and organizational initiatives to ensure employee understanding and alignment
Works with the Director to establish clear team goals and works with leaders and individual contributors to establish goals that tie back to broader business and technology outcomes
Encourages employee feedback through formal and informal channels and takes action on feedback to drive a trusting culture of open two-way communication, inclusivity, and continuous improvement
Creates an environment where engineers are encouraged to challenge assumptions, experiment with new technologies, and identify better ways to automate and scale the business
Evaluates resource needs across teams and makes recommendations that balance strategic opportunity, delivery timelines, technical risk, and cost effectiveness
Leads organizational change thoughtfully, including team growth, shifting responsibilities, new capability development, and evolving operating models
Coaches teams through complex business and technical domains, helping them move from dependency on a small number of experts toward broader organizational knowledge and ownership
Ability to travel up to 10% domestically and internationally
Values a diverse and inclusive work environment

Benefits

Three medical plans which include Prescription drug coverage
Enhanced Fertility benefits
Flexible Spending Accounts
Health Savings Account (including employer contribution)
Dental and Vision
Basic and Supplemental Life Insurance
Short-Term and Long-Term Disability
Paid observed holidays
2 paid floating holidays for U.S. hourly employees
Flexible Time Off (FTO) offered to U.S. salaried employees — no accruals and no caps. Paid Time Off (PTO) offered to all other employees in the U.S. and Canada
Paid parental leave
Paid time off to volunteer in your community
Charitable Giving Match Program
401(k) with 6% company matching
Employee Stock Purchase Plan
Plus a broad range of career development, networking, and team-building opportunities