eCommerce Technical Lead

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in Poland.

📋 Description

• Take charge of the technical direction, quality, and uptime of our eCommerce platform and its integrations. The eCommerce Director will assist in maintaining clear and prioritized business objectives.

• Oversee the backend of our platform (Magento 2, implemented by a skilled contractor) through thorough review: establishing quality gates, adhering to schedules, and engaging with the code when senior judgment is required.

• Compose, review, and deploy our front-end code (Vue 3 and Nuxt for storefront, Sanity for content) in collaboration with our partnered agency, while striving to minimize technical debt through appropriate means, which may include refactoring, altering patterns, and gradually bringing more work in-house as the internal team expands. This area is actively growing and exhibits the most visible technical debt.

• Manage the integrations between Magento and its dependent systems, such as ERP (NetSuite), payments, OMS, PIM, and CMS. You will tackle real eCommerce challenges like checkout issues, returns workflows, performance bottlenecks, data consistency, and third-party reliability. Your role will involve transforming loosely defined challenges into clear technical strategies by defining constraints and trade-offs.

• Participate in resolving production issues and contribute to enhancing monitoring, deployment, and reliability over time. Conduct thorough engineering reviews on code from both internal contributors and external agencies: identifying defects, overlooked edge cases, and shortcuts that may incur future costs, while providing specific, actionable feedback. You will challenge external recommendations that contradict platform health or long-term business goals.

• Assist in establishing and reinforcing standards for code quality, documentation, and development workflows, aiming to reduce rework and enhance predictability. The objective is to implement streamlined, effective processes that scale with team growth.

• In the future, this role may include direct people-management responsibilities, encompassing hiring, performance management, terminations, and related tasks.

• Other duties as assigned.

⛳️ Requirements

• Minimum of 5 years of professional software engineering experience, including at least 3 years in building and operating complex eCommerce platforms at scale (Magento 2, Shopify Plus, BigCommerce, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, commercetools, or equivalent). Generalist backgrounds lacking eCommerce depth will not be suitable.

• Proficient in JavaScript and TypeScript, with hands-on experience delivering production work in Vue 3 and Nuxt, or a similar framework like Next and React. Experience with a headless CMS, preferably Sanity, is required.

• Proven experience with a headless or decoupled frontend architecture integrated with a commerce backend. Familiarity with integrating eCommerce platforms with ERP systems (NetSuite is preferred; SAP, Dynamics, Salesforce, or similar are acceptable) and a history of managing multi-system integrations across payments, OMS, PIM, search, and CDP is essential.

• Practical experience with caching at the platform level, including Varnish, Redis, or equivalent.

• Strong, hands-on understanding of CI/CD, code review, monitoring, and incident response. Theoretical knowledge alone is insufficient.

• A solid grasp of UI and UX principles, with the capability to assess frontend work beyond mere functionality. While you do not need to be a designer, you should care about the user experience produced by the code.

• Experience collaborating with external agencies and vendors, including scoping work, reviewing deliverables, and effectively pushing back on inadequate recommendations. This role centers around this dynamic, making a proven track record essential.

• Familiarity with PHP and Magento 2 is a plus, sufficient to follow the code, contribute to architectural decisions, and evaluate work from the backend contractor. You do not need to be a Magento expert. Most backend implementation is managed by an experienced contractor, and your role will focus on maintaining quality, schedule, and direction.

• Additional advantages include early technical leadership experience (e.g., tech lead on a squad, mentoring, or fostering a code review culture), Magento 2 frontend modernization experience such as Hyvä or PWA Studio, and familiarity with Elasticsearch or Algolia.

🏝️ Benefits

• **Compensation ranges from $35 to $48 USD per hour. This is a long-term independent contractor position for a U.S.-based company. Candidates must be able to work as self-employed contractors or through their own registered business entity in their country of residence. We welcome candidates located throughout Europe, with a strong preference for Poland, Croatia, Serbia, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Czechia, and neighboring countries.** You must: **Be legally authorized to provide independent contractor services from your country of residence. Be able to invoice a U.S. company directly or through your business entity. Have reliable high-speed internet and a dedicated workspace. Be comfortable working in English with a geographically distributed team.

• **About the Environment: **While performing the duties of this job, you may frequently need to stand, sit, talk, hear, reach, stoop, kneel, and use your hands and fingers to operate a computer, telephone, and keyboard. Specific vision abilities required for this job include close vision due to computer work. You should be able to sit at a computer terminal for extended periods. Light lifting may be necessary. Occasional travel by ground or air may be required for team-building events. Regular, predictable attendance is essential.

• **Travel Expectations: **Occasional international travel may be needed.