Software Engineering Manager

The Software Engineering Manager for this role will provide engineering leadership across three core, foundational areas that underpin Kroger’s digital platforms. First, the manager will oversee the Search Core domain, which owns the data lakes and data loaders that serve as the backbone of our search platforms. Second, they will lead our A/B testing tools, enabling experimentation and experience optimization across banner. Finally, the role will guide the Frameworks team, responsible for maintaining KTD KroGo and shared Java frameworks that accelerate development through standardized patterns and reusable components. Together, these areas form critical platform capabilities that support scale, innovation, and engineering excellence.

Direct and manage the software design, development, implementation and support of multiple teams and/or their supporting processes to meet organizational expectations. Lead the strategic direction and function as a liaison across the Technology and Digital organization, and business stakeholders. Lead and uphold the associate continuous high-performance process. Demonstrate the company’s core values of respect, honesty, integrity, diversity, inclusion and safety

- Partner & collaborate with engineering peers, product management, product design, & third parties (as appropriate) to prioritize deliverables providing the greatest value to our customers and business
- Hire & manage engineers & application system analysts; assign, direct, & evaluate their work/performance by writing performance reviews & providing feedback
- Present practical input for strategic technology decisions; synthesize complex problems & present simple, practical, reliable, & maintainable solutions
- Drive strategic alignment of system specifications, associate requirements, & project schedules of technology services
- Responsible for systems performance & resolution of production incidents, which may require 24hr/7day week coverage
- Work with Product Management to prioritize, scope & plan business milestones
- Support preparation of technology roadmap & provide input to business roadmap
- Monitor new technologies & trends within the industry
- Improve technology agility facilitating the use & creation of Cloud Services, REST APIs, design patterns, Behavior Driven Development (BDD), Test Driven Design (TDD), Continuous Integration (CI)/Continuous Deployment (CD), version control, proper environment releases, etc.
- Drive root-cause analysis of critical business & production issues to prevent future occurrences as well as review/approve potential solutions
- Establish performance standards & procedures, regulatory compliance & conduct ongoing performance audits & take action
- Must be able to perform the essential job functions of this position with or without reasonable accommodation

Minimum
- Bachelor's Degree computer science, information systems, or related technical field
- High School Diploma or GED 
- Any understanding of & practice in agile software development & management
- Any experience/familiarity with RDBMS, NoSQL, Big Data technologies
- Any experience with web/app containers such as Apache/Tomcat, Jboss or related skill
- Any direct technical experience in related disciplines
- Any extensive experience building/deploying services and/or applications using: Java, Spring/Spring Boot, REST APIs, Swagger, Node, Azure, GitHub, CI/CD, Kubernetes
- 2+ years of experience in eCommerce, retails systems or high transaction software solutions
- 5+ years of experience in administrative management of technical teams and/ or extended staff
- Excellent communication, collaboration, reporting, analytical & problem-solving skills
- Strong leadership & negotiation skills with business & technical group

Desired
- Master's Degree computer science, information systems, or related technical field
- Any experience developing and/or architecting front-end experiences � React, Swift (native iOS), Kotlin (native Android)
- Any of experience developing and/or architecting cloud-hosted backend services with Azure and/or GCP
- 2+ years of experience in leading engineering teams of 5+ engineers & coaching, mentoring individuals to grow their career

• Proven experience managing mixed teams of full‑time engineers (FTEs) and contractors, including onboarding, performance management, and day‑to‑day execution.
• Experience managing vendor and partner relationships, including setting expectations, ensuring delivery quality, and aligning external teams with internal priorities.
• Demonstrated ability to define clear team goals and success metrics, while also tailoring objectives to support individual growth, career development, and engagement.
• Strong partnership experience with Product Management and Product Leadership, including co‑owning roadmaps, sequencing work, and balancing near‑term delivery with long‑term platform investments.
• Hands‑on experience prioritizing engineering excellence, including managing technical debt, improving system quality, and making deliberate tradeoffs to maintain platform health.
• Track record of identifying and removing blockers, reducing bottlenecks, and improving team throughput and predictability in complex environments.
• Ability to lead teams through competing priorities while maintaining focus on reliability, scalability, and business outcomes.
• Drive engineering standards, governance, and CI/CD practices across multiple teams will be well positioned for success. Strong cross‑functional leadership skills, experience modernizing or evolving platform foundations, and prior work in retail, eCommerce, or high‑traffic consumer systems are beneficial for balancing platform stability, developer velocity, and business impact.

 

Nice‑to‑have experience for this role includes exposure to large‑scale search or relevancy platforms, experimentation and A/B testing systems, and ownership of shared internal platforms or frameworks. Familiarity with data‑intensive systems such as data lakes, ingestion pipelines, and event‑driven architectures, along with cloud‑native and distributed system design (e.g., GCP), would be valuable. Experience enabling data science and ML teams through platforms and tooling—rather than direct model development—is also a strong plus.