Senior Technical Manager

Job Summary

Engineering Management | Microservices Architecture | Event-Driven Systems

Cloud Platforms (GCP, Ali cloud) | Kafka | Solace & Messaging | DevOps & CI/CD

Distributed Systems | Kubernetes & Docker | Technical Leadership

Retail Domain Expertise | Agile & Roadmap Planning | People Development

Key Responsibilities

Engineering Excellence

• Define and enforce Dev & QE best practices across squads
• Own Tech Design and Implementation approach
• Establish and operate DevOps pipelines and practices
• Drive AI enablement across engineering workflows

Delivery & Execution

• Accountable for overall Sprint Execution and capacity planning
• Facilitate and unblock work across all Engineering Leads
• Manage RAAIDD - with emphasis on unblocking technical dependencies
• Coordinate Release management in collaboration with the client
• Drive Go/No-Go decisions collaboratively with client’s stakeholders
• Own Production Cutover strategy and facilitation

Agile & Ceremonies

• Champion and embed Agile Ways of Working across teams
• Manage sprint estimations, velocity tracking, and capacity accountability
• Track all standard Agile/Scrum metrics and component KPIs

People & Resources

• People management - performance, growth, and engagement
• Assess resource requirements and skill sets; flag gaps proactively
• Act as closest leadership touchpoint to Squads, ELs, and engineers

Governance & Financials

• Manage tech costs and drive platform/people cost optimisation
• Measure and report on Delivery, Quality, Time, Cost, and Scope metrics
• Lead Change Request impact assessments
• Align dependencies across squads and external teams

Stakeholder Collaboration (Amigos Model)

• Collaborate across Product, Architecture, Data Architecture, PM, EL, QA, Legacy Team, and BAs
• Operate at multi-squad level bridging Engineering and Delivery roles

Skill Requirements

Technical Expertise

• 12+ years of software engineering experience; 3+ years leading engineering teams of 10 or more.
• Deep expertise in microservices architecture and event-driven systems (Apache Kafka, Solace, AWS MSK, or equivalent).
• Hands-on cloud experience on GCP/Ali cloud and their services.
• Strong foundation in Java/Kotlin and Spring Boot for backend systems.
• Proven track record delivering CI/CD pipelines and DevOps practices in a production environment.
• Experience with containerisation (Docker, Kubernetes)
• Database proficiency: PostgreSQL, MySQL, or equivalent; awareness of NoSQL and caching patterns (Redis/ElastiCache).
• Familiarity with API design (REST, GraphQL, gRPC) and integration patterns (ESB migration, strangler fig).

Retail / Domain Context (Preferred)

• Experience with retail or e-commerce platform modernization
• Understanding of omnichannel retail architecture

Leadership & Soft Skills

• Demonstrated ability to manage hiring, performance, and career development for distributed engineering teams.
• Excellent stakeholder communication - able to translate technical complexity into clear business language.
• Strong agile practitioner; experience with SAFe or LeSS in large program contexts is a plus.
• Comfortable operating in ambiguity and driving decisions in a fast-paced transformation environment.

Other Requirements