Sr Director, Engineering - Store Commerce & Restaurant Technology

Nordstrom•Seattle, WA

2d•Hybrid

About The Position

At Nordstrom, technology leadership is about empowering people and elevating experiences. A Senior Director within Nordstrom Technology plays a critical role in creating an environment where talented teams feel inspired to do their best work in service of our customers and our business. Through people‑centered leadership, this role shapes strategy, builds strong teams, and ensures technology advances are tightly connected to how Nordstrom serves customers every day. As the Senior Director of Engineering for Store Commerce & Restaurant Technology, you will lead the vision, delivery, and evolution of the core in‑store technologies that sit at the heart of the Nordstrom experience. Your scope includes Point of Sale platforms across Nordstrom Full Line and Nordstrom Rack, restaurant technology, and store hardware infrastructure—the essential systems that enable our store teams to serve customers seamlessly, confidently, and at scale. This role is central to Nordstrom’s journey toward unified commerce: bringing together physical and digital experiences through a shared platform and real‑time data foundation. You will help eliminate friction between POS, order management, inventory, and customer identity—enabling stores to function not as standalone touchpoints, but as fully integrated nodes within a powerful, connected commerce ecosystem. Success in this role calls for a technically grounded, people‑first leader who understands the realities of retail and restaurant environments, can navigate the complexity of enterprise‑scale platforms, and knows how to thoughtfully combine third‑party solutions with in‑house innovation. You will bring a modern commerce mindset—recognizing that POS is no longer just a register, but the physical expression of a unified platform—and partner closely with enterprise architecture, digital, product, and data teams to make that vision real. Above all, you will foster an inclusive, customer‑centric culture, building strong partnerships with Store Operations, Product, Restaurant, Finance, and Technology leaders to ensure our store systems are resilient, scalable, and built for the future—so our teams can focus on what Nordstrom does best: delivering exceptional customer experiences. This hybrid role is based in Seattle and reports to the Vice President, Retail Technology.

Requirements

15+ years of experience in technology, with at least 7–10 years in senior leadership roles managing large, enterprise-scale engineering organizations.
Proven experience owning store technology systems in a retail environment, including Point of Sale platforms, store hardware, and associated integrations.
Deep familiarity with the operational realities of physical retail: store opening/closing processes, associate workflows, payment processing, inventory visibility at the floor level, and fulfillment from store.
Strong technical background with hands-on experience in modern software development practices, web technologies, and distributed systems.
Experience managing and integrating third-party software providers (e.g., POS vendors, hardware OEMs) and negotiating contracts and SLAs to drive business value.
Demonstrated success leading multi-team organizations through platform modernization, consolidation, or significant technology transformation.
Proven track record of building and scaling high-performing, cross-functional engineering teams with a strong commitment to inclusion and growing others.
Exceptional communication and presentation skills, with the ability to articulate complex technical topics to executive audiences and build trust across organizational levels.
Strong strategic and analytical skills, with the ability to translate ambiguous business needs into clear technology outcomes and investment priorities.
Stakeholder-centric mindset — you can hold multiple perspectives simultaneously, synthesize competing priorities, and lead through disagreement to durable alignment.
Experience with agile and lean development methodologies and a demonstrated commitment to operational excellence, reliability, and continuous improvement.
A clear point of view on unified commerce architecture — including how POS, order management, inventory, loyalty, and customer identity systems must converge onto a shared platform to enable real-time, channel-agnostic experiences.
Demonstrated experience driving progress toward unified commerce, including omnichannel capabilities, and unified inventory visibility.
Proven experience driving AI adoption and transformation within an engineering organization — including implementation of AI-assisted development practices.
You can articulate a credible AI vision for retail store and restaurant environments and build toward it.
Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Information Technology, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.

Nice To Haves

Restaurant or food service technology experience is a plus.
Hands-on experience with restaurant technology ecosystems, including integrations across labor management; food cost management and restaurant inventory control.
You understand that these are functionally separate systems — often from different vendors — and where the integration gaps create operational and financial risk.

Responsibilities

Define and execute the technology strategy for POS platforms across Nordstrom Full Line and Nordstrom Rack stores, ensuring systems support sales, inventory visibility, and in-store fulfillment seamlessly.
Lead and evolve the Restaurant technology platform end-to-end — spanning point of sale, online/mobile ordering, and guest-facing payment.
Oversee integrations with labor management systems (scheduling, time and attendance, etc.), food cost management and recipe costing platforms, and restaurant inventory systems — recognizing that these are distinct domains that must work together to give operators a complete picture of cost and control.
Support the Store Hardware strategy, including device lifecycle management, vendor relationships, and hardware standardization across store formats.
Drive organizational structure, talent planning, and leadership development across POS, Restaurant, and Hardware engineering teams.
Identify and develop leaders at all levels; build high-performing, inclusive teams that are equipped to execute on a complex, multi-year roadmap.
Own architectural decisions for store commerce systems, balancing short-term operational stability with long-term platform modernization goals.
Partner with business and product leaders to translate store operational needs into technology outcomes — gathering requirements, evaluating build vs. buy options, and selecting the right technology.
Manage third-party software providers and hardware vendors, including contract negotiation, integration oversight, and ongoing performance management.
Drive platform consolidation and shared technology foundations across store formats, reducing redundancy and accelerating the pace of innovation.
Define engineering standards, operational excellence practices, and KPIs for store technology reliability, uptime, and incident response.
Collaborate with Finance and Procurement on budget planning, hardware refresh cycles, and total cost of ownership for store technology investments.
Champion unified commerce as a strategic direction for store technology — working across POS, order management, inventory, and customer identity to move from point-to-point channel integrations toward a shared platform and a seamless cross-channel customer journey.
Drive AI transformation across the organization — both in how your engineering teams build software (AI-assisted development, code generation, automated testing) and in how AI creates new capabilities for the business.
Partner with enterprise AI and data platform teams to surface store and restaurant data as a competitive asset — enabling real-time reporting on sales, food costs, labor efficiency, and inventory that empowers store leaders to make faster, better decisions.