Senior Manager, Software Engineering - Merchandising & Item Management

Role at a glance :

Job title : Senior Manager, Software Engineering

Job family : Software Engineering

Team : Retail Technology - Merchandising & Item Management

Location : DLF Downtown, Taramani, Rajiv Gandhi Salai (OMR), Chennai, Tamil Nadu 600113, India (hybrid; onsite cadence to be confirmed)

Experience : 10 - 12 years

Shift (IST) : 2:00 - 11:00 PM

People management : Yes

About the role :

We are looking for a Senior Manager, Software Engineering to lead an initial team of approximately 10 - 12 people supporting its item-management applications, starting with a STIBO SaaS solution. Other merchandising systems are expected to join the group as the team grows. You will join the new India GCC in Chennai and work directly with US colleagues.

This is an engineering leadership role, not a hands-on developer or a project-management-only position. It combines people leadership, delivery accountability, stakeholder partnership and disciplined execution, grounded in a strong Java engineering background and sound design judgment.

What you will do :

Delivery & Execution :

- Lead planning, delivery, and operational performance for software engineering.

- Guide a team responsible for application design, development, integration, testing, deployment, and modernization.

- Translate priorities into roadmaps, plans, backlogs, and measurable outcomes.

- Reinforce quality, architecture, security, privacy, compliance, and operational standards.

- Manage capacity, delivery risks, dependencies, budgets, and vendors as applicable.

- Use metrics to improve quality, speed, reliability, cost, and stakeholder value.

- Guide technical direction: ask the right design and architecture questions, recognize risky decisions, and work with technical leads and architects to course-correct.

- Own effective Agile delivery: lead standups, keep the backlog actionable, check that testing approaches make sense, and help the team remove blockers.

Support & Enablement :

- Lead, coach, and develop team members; support hiring, performance, and talent processes.

- Build strong partnerships across business, product, architecture, security, data, and technology teams.

- Communicate priorities, progress, risks, and decisions clearly.

- Create an inclusive, accountable, and high-performing team environment.

- Provide day-to-day technical and people leadership in Chennai with enough independence to work directly with US colleagues.

Basic qualifications :

- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, Design, Analytics, Business, or a related discipline

- 10 to 12 years of relevant experience in software engineering or a closely related discipline

- Experience with application design, development, integration, testing, deployment, and modernization

- Experience leading teams, workstreams, programs, or technology delivery in a complex organization

- Knowledge of programming languages, APIs, cloud platforms, databases, CI/CD, testing, and secure software development

- Experience collaborating across business and technology teams

- Strong analytical, problem-solving, written, and verbal communication skills

- Java engineering foundation: personally designed or built Java applications earlier in your career and can evaluate Java-related technical decisions

- Real engineering leadership: led engineers through releases and technical trade-offs, not just staffing, project schedules or vendor coordination

- Agile execution and design judgment, with examples of managing backlogs, test readiness, technical risks and architecture discussions

Preferred qualifications :

- Master's degree in a related technical or business field is preferred

- Advanced knowledge of programming languages, APIs, cloud platforms, databases, CI/CD, testing, and secure software development

- Experience with enterprise-scale cloud, data, digital, retail, pharmacy, healthcare, or customer technology environments

- Experience working with global teams, managed service partners, or distributed delivery models

- Relevant industry, cloud, agile, product, architecture, data, security, design, or technology certifications are preferred

- Experience with product information management (PIM), master data, product catalogs or retail merchandising

- Experience with SaaS integrations; STIBO exposure is a plus but not required

- Familiarity with AS400 / IBM i application environments

Other details :

Supervisory responsibilities : Yes, including hiring, performance, scheduling and team development.

Travel : Up to 5%, based on business needs.