Principal Backend Engineer

The Zalando eCommerce Platform Sciences team assists customers in their fashion discovery journey and helps them find what they are looking for across Zalando. In the echo department we drive the vision of having Zalando be the place for customers to discover quality content, find personalised inspiration and make a truly deeper connection. We are transforming the content discovery systems, utilising innovative approaches and building inspirational experiences for our customers.As a Principal engineer, you will be part of the leadership team and work with exceptional engineers and science leaders to enable customers of Zalando explore and discover fashion in a unique style. You will partner with your Product counterparts to define and deliver new ways to discover fashion and lifestyle across all Zalando experiences.Teams at our Zurich Tech Hub work on many of the cornerstones of our Fashion Store, including personalization and recommendation components. Through full stack engineering and research, we turn visionary ideas into new emerging businesses with real potential. By tackling diverse challenges for the fashion industry, we drive the personal digital experience and underlying knowledge models to create the most inspirational fashion experience for our customers.INCLUSIVE BY DESIGNAt Zalando, our vision is to be inclusive by design. And this vision starts with our hiring - we do not discriminate on the basis of gender identity, sexual orientation, personal expression, ethnicity, religious belief, or disability status. You are welcome to leave out your picture, age, or marital status from your application. We only assess candidates on their qualifications and merit.We want to provide you with a great candidate experience. Feel free to inform us of any accommodations you may need, so we can best support you throughout the hiring process.WHAT WE’D LOVE YOU TO DO (AND LOVE DOING)Design, build, and maintain large-scale systems and services for customer facing product experiences.Ensure the implementation of a state-of-the-art software development methodology and cultivate best practices in software development. Operate a complex and advanced system landscape that meets the highest standards in terms of reliability, performance, and latency.Mentor junior to senior engineers and actively collaborate with other teams. Share knowledge and expertise within our talented engineering and science community.Work closely with applied science and engineering leaders, product managers, designers and other business stakeholders to bring our state-of-the-art solutions to the customers and to discover and identify new opportunities.As part of our Principal Engineering Community, you collaborate with other senior individual contributors to set engineering standards, guide decision‑making for the technology landscape at Zalando via our Tech Radar.You have experience in building complete product experiences using supervised and unsupervised learning, natural language processing, reinforcement learning, and computer vision.Expertise in design and development of resilient, scalable distributed systems in a cloud infrastructure, with a preference for proficiency in Kubernetes and AWS.A strong background in designing and developing ML models and systems is highly valued. This role requires a blend of system design and hands‑on coding experience.Hands‑on experience in managing large‑scale systems.In depth experience working in programming languages such as Python, Java and experience with deep learning frameworks like TensorFlow, PyTorch.Good communication skills and experience leading organization‑wide collaborations. Ability and eagerness to understand the business context where the team operates and the customer problems being solved.Experience coaching and mentoring senior engineers, and working closely with applied scientists, senior machine learning engineers and data scientists.Strong advocacy for agile processes, operational excellence, and adherence to coding best practices, including clean code, readability, and test‑driven development.Zalando provides a range of benefitsEmployee shares program40% off fashion and beauty products sold and shipped by Zalando, 30% off Lounge by Zalando, discounts from external partners2 paid volunteering days a yearHybrid working model with up to 60% remote per week, actual practice is up to each team to best support their collaborationWork from abroad for up to 30 working days a year25 days of vacation a year for full‑time employeesHealth and wellbeing options (SportAbo in Zurich)Swiss SBB Halbtax (half‑fare card)Mental health support and coaching availableDrive your development through our training platform and biannual peer‑to‑peer reviewshilpa.mishra@zalando.dePlease note that all applications from this job page must be completed using the online form – we do not accept applications via e‑mail. Once reviewed, our recruiters will contact applicants via an official Zalando email address (@zalando.de).In some cases we also work with a selection of headhunters and agencies to fill specific roles. Please note that neither Zalando nor our recruiting partners will ask for any kind of payment to apply for a job or attend an interview.If you have any questions about our recruitment process, please take a look at our FAQ page.Software EngineeringOur Software Engineering teams deploy software extensively, managing a broad set of applications and conducting thousands of deployments per week. The Software Engineering team enables Zalando as Europe’s number one multi‑brand, digital platform for fashion, beauty, and lifestyle for our partners and customers. As a Zalando Software Engineer, you’ll be part of a community of thousands of colleagues across Europe.It’s the perfect time to join Zalando on our journey to build the leading pan‑European ecosystem for fashion and lifestyle e‑commerce. Help us offer an inspiring and quality multi‑brand shopping experience for fashion and lifestyle products to about 50 million active customers in 25 markets. Or be part of our logistic infrastructure, software or service capabilities to help brands and retailers run and scale their entire e‑commerce business, on or off Zalando. Join our Zalando ecosystem, to enable positive change for the fashion and lifestyle industry. #J-18808-Ljbffr