Sr Manager - Digital Product Engineering

Ulta Beauty, Inc.•Bolingbrook, IL

About The Position

Live the experience. From professional empowerment to continual learning opportunities. From ongoing investment in new and emerging technologies to a career of self-determination. At Ulta Beauty, our tech team is critical to our scalability—and is recognized that way. We’ve been defined as a “mature start-up.” A place where interdepartmental exposure, open doors, and genuine collaboration is ubiquitous. Where challenges come fast and furious, requiring agility, mental dexterity, and creativity. Where our passion for better solutions drives us and is core to who we are. We’re engineering for the future of retail, and it’s no-holds-barred. But for those motivated by continual change and ambiguity, by superior leadership, by whip smart colleagues who will press you daily for your very best, you’ll find that virtually nothing’s impossible at Ulta Beauty. THE IMPACT YOU WILL HAVE: The Sr. Engineering Manager, Product Development leads the technical product development across multiple teams at Ulta, in direct partnership with stakeholders and product owners. The Sr. Engineering Manager is responsible for the sprint, delivering features across a line of products and overseeing daily technical work for the teams they are leading. They implement and manage the product development lifecycle, coordinate testing, continuous improvement, support implementation of back-end SaaS platforms, and plan technical integrations. They will also serve as a thought leader on product vision, solution architecture, and product innovation.

Requirements

Education & Foundation: Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, CIS, or equivalent professional experience demonstrating deep technical aptitude.
Leadership Experience: Minimum 10+ years in software or product development, with 3+ years leading engineering teams, including coaching, performance management, and delivery accountability.
Frontend Expertise: Proven ability to design and deliver scalable, customer-facing web applications using React and modern API architectures (REST, GraphQL).
Backend & Integration Depth: Strong hands-on experience with backend engineering using Spring Boot / Java and Node.js, with a clear understanding of service design, API integration, and data flow patterns.
Architecture & Platform Knowledge: Solid grasp of MACH architectures, experience with Google Cloud (or similar) platform exposure, and integration with SaaS ecosystems.
Delivery & Execution: Demonstrated success in delivering complex digital products through agile methodologies and modern CI/CD automation pipelines.
Analytical & Problem Solving: Ability to identify root causes quickly, diagnose systemic issues, and guide teams toward sustainable technical solutions.
Collaboration & Influence: Excellent communication and stakeholder-management skills; proven effectiveness working across Product, Design, and Architecture teams.
Vendor & Team Management: Track record of managing blended onshore/offshore teams and partner vendors to deliver with velocity and quality.
Execution Discipline: Consistent history of delivering high-quality software, on time and within scope, in fast-paced enterprise setting.
Operational Readiness: Flexibility to support production deployments or incidents during off hours, weekends, or peak holiday seasons.

Nice To Haves

Domain Advantage (Preferred): Experience in eCommerce platform engineering, particularly Search/Browse, Cart, Checkout, or Order Management — is a strong plus.
Cross-Channel Awareness: Exposure to native mobile application development (iOS/Android) or integration with mobile-first architectures is a plus.
Other: Minimal travel required (training, conferences, or team summits).

Responsibilities

Technical Leadership: Shape and guide the technical vision of Ulta’s digital products, ensuring scalable, secure, and performant solutions leveraging React, REST/GraphQL APIs, and modern SaaS platforms.
Product Engineering Execution: Translate product roadmaps into actionable engineering backlogs and technical roadmaps; ensure timely delivery of features with high quality and reliability.
Architecture Partnership: Collaborate with enterprise and solution architects to evolve front-end, API, and backend architecture patterns using Spring Boot / Java and Node.js, aligned with business strategy, scalability goals, and cloud-native principles.
People Management: Lead, mentor, and inspire Engineers (and Managers) to achieve excellence through coaching, career growth, and fostering a culture of accountability, learning, and innovation.
Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner with Product, Design, and Architecture teams to ensure alignment between business goals, user experience, and technical implementation.
Agile Delivery: Champion the adoption of agile and product development practices focused on delivering measurable customer and business value.
Provide technical oversight and architectural guidance across front-end and backend components, ensuring design consistency, scalability, and adherence to engineering best practices.
Review and refine technical solutions through design reviews, code quality assessments, and hands-on problem solving where needed.
Drive on-time, high-quality delivery of features across web and API products including sprint demos, release readiness, and continuous deployment through mature CI/CD practices.
Guide the development of React-based web applications and backend services using Spring Boot / Java and Node.js microservices, ensuring performance, security, and maintainability.
Design, implement, and optimize cloud-native solutions leveraging Google Cloud integrating with Ulta’s broader digital ecosystem and enterprise platforms.
Champion engineering automation and quality excellence by strengthening test coverage, observability, and release automation frameworks.
Partner with Product Owners and UI/UX designers to translate business needs into well-defined, testable user stories that balance speed, quality, and technical integrity.
Accelerate platform adoption and reuse by aligning with enterprise architecture patterns, SaaS integrations, and shared component frameworks.
Continuously evaluate and introduce new tools, frameworks, and engineering practices that improve developer productivity, system performance, and reliability.
Partner with enterprise architecture to ensure alignment with enterprise standards and platform capabilities.

Benefits

Full-time positions are eligible for paid time off, health, dental, vision, life and disability benefits.
Part-time positions are eligible for dental, vision, life, and disability benefits.

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