Senior Engineering Manager
First seen by Alion on Sep 7, 2026.
Key Responsibilities
1. Engineering & Architecture Leadership
- Lead the design, development and modernization of enterprise-scale applications and distributed services.
- Define and drive scalable, resilient and maintainable application architectures.
- Establish engineering standards covering coding practices, design principles, performance, security, observability and reliability.
- Review and challenge solution architecture and technical designs proposed by internal and partner teams.
- Drive adoption of modern engineering practices across the technology landscape.
2. Hands-on Application Engineering
- Design and develop backend services using Java, Spring Boot, Python and/or Node.js.
- Build scalable microservices and distributed services for high-volume retail workloads.
- Develop and maintain RESTful APIs and API-driven integrations.
- Design reusable services and components following modular and domain-oriented architecture principles.
- Troubleshoot complex application, integration and performance issues and provide hands-on technical guidance to engineering teams.
3. Microservices & Distributed Systems
- Design and implement microservices-based architectures.
- Define service boundaries, communication patterns, resiliency and fault-tolerance mechanisms.
- Design systems for scalability, high availability and performance.
- Apply appropriate patterns for synchronous and asynchronous communication.
- Drive modernization of legacy applications and monolithic systems into scalable distributed services.
4. Event-Driven Architecture & Integration
- Design and implement event-driven architectures using messaging and streaming technologies.
- Develop asynchronous integrations using platforms such as Kafka, RabbitMQ, Azure Service Bus, IBM MQ or equivalent.
- Design enterprise integrations across OMS, WMS, TMS, SAP ERP, Payments, CRM, Loyalty, Store Systems, Carriers and other third-party platforms.
- Ensure reliable message processing, error handling, retry mechanisms, idempotency and integration observability.
5. Cloud-Native Engineering
- Design and build cloud-native applications and distributed services on Azure or equivalent cloud platforms.
- Drive containerization using Docker and Kubernetes.
- Leverage cloud-native services for compute, messaging, storage, API management, monitoring and integration.
- Drive application scalability, resilience, performance and cost optimization.
- Promote infrastructure and deployment automation through CI/CD and DevSecOps practices.
6. Domain Platform Ownership
Provide technical ownership and engineering leadership for one or more retail/supply-chain platforms based on the candidate's area of expertise, such as:
- IBM Sterling OMS - order orchestration, fulfilment, inventory, returns and omnichannel order management.
- Blue Yonder WMS - warehouse execution, inventory, replenishment, picking, packing and dispatch.
- TMS / Transportation Platforms - transportation planning, carrier integration, shipment execution and last-mile processes.
The candidate is not expected to have deep expertise across all three platforms. Strong hands-on expertise in one domain, together with the ability to understand and integrate with adjacent platforms is expected.
7. Data & Database Engineering
- Strong SQL skills for application development, troubleshooting and data analysis.
- Design efficient data access patterns and database interactions.
- Diagnose data inconsistencies and performance issues across distributed applications.
- Work with relational and NoSQL databases where appropriate.
- Ensure data integrity, consistency and appropriate transaction management across distributed systems.
8. Production Engineering & Reliability
- Own production stability and technical health of critical applications and platforms.
- Lead RCA and resolution of critical incidents.
- Improve application observability through monitoring, logging, tracing and alerting.
- Establish performance, availability and reliability engineering practices.
- Drive proactive identification and resolution of technical debt and recurring production issues.
9. Engineering Delivery & Vendor Management
- Lead implementation and technology partners delivering engineering solutions.
- Own technical governance, delivery quality and engineering standards across partner teams.
- Review partner architecture, code quality, technical approaches and implementation plans.
- Drive SLA adherence, delivery timelines and quality metrics.
- Provide technical direction to partner teams while retaining hands-on ownership of critical engineering decisions.
10. Stakeholder Management
Work closely with:
- Product and Business teams
- Supply Chain and Warehouse Operations
- Store Operations
- ERP / SAP teams
- Enterprise Architecture
- Infrastructure / Cloud
- Information Security
- Data & Analytics
- Implementation partners
Translate business requirements into scalable technical solutions and communicate complex technical decisions effectively to senior stakeholders.
Skills
Java Architect, IT Product Development, CTO, Technical Architect