About the RoleJoin a data engineering group that is evolving into a data focused software-engineering organization and is deliberately reinventing how engineering work is performed with AI.
This is an engineering management role in the data domain. You will lead the data and software engineers who build and interact with streams, services, shared libraries, analytical & operational data stores, and vendor integrations; it is a hands-on role. We expect our engineering managers to stay in the codebase every week and you will have the time and the support to do that.
Your engineers work inside data product teams, each of which are co-lead by a tech lead and a product manager who set direction and priority. Your focus is the engineers themselves: helping them make sound technical decisions, raising the quality of what they ship, supporting how they run it in production, and investing in how they grow. At this level you would support one to two data product teams' of engineers.
Because the work happens in teams you do not manage, much of your influence comes through partnership rather than reporting lines. You will not own the backlog, and you will not need to. The role is going well when a tech lead brings you into a design conversation early, when a product manager trusts your read on what is realistic, and when your engineers are making good calls without you in the room.
AI-assisted engineering is a core part of how we work, and we look for managers who practice it themselves rather than only encourage it. That means using AI to pressure-test designs, surface underspecified requirements, explore unfamiliar code, and to help your engineers build those habits into how they work, review, and learn.
What You Will Do- Manage, coach, and grow a team of software engineers embedded across one to two data product teams.
- Partner with the tech lead and product manager on each team so your engineers are set up to make sound technical decisions.
- Hold the engineering standard - design quality, interface and contract design, testing, observability, and operational readiness - without owning the product backlog.
- Own delivery predictability, on-call health, and platform operations for your team.
- Run hiring, performance, compensation, and calibration for your engineers.
- Build per-engineer development plans against the team's technical roadmap, and close skill gaps before they become delivery risk.
- Escalate and resolve priority conflicts when a product team's demands exceed what your engineers can sustainably deliver.
- Drive adoption of AI-assisted engineering practices, and share what works across the wider data organization.
- Participate in design reviews and technical tradeoff discussions, and stay close enough to the systems to have an informed opinion.
- Represent your team's work and constraints clearly to stakeholders outside engineering.
An Excellent Candidate Has- Experience managing software engineers who build production backend services, APIs, internal platforms, or distributed applications.
- Experience leading engineers who are embedded in product teams they do not report into, and a working model for making that partnership productive.
- The technical depth to review a design, ask the question that was missed, and recognize when an approach will not survive contact with production.
- Experience building a healthy on-call practice and treating operations as part of engineering.
- A track record of growing engineers - promotions, scope increases, and people who got better on their watch.
- Experience hiring, including calibrating a bar and closing candidates.
- Familiarity with data systems - pipelines, analytical platforms, data modeling, event-driven architectures, or large-scale data movement - enough to lead engineers working in that domain.
- Practical experience using AI in their own work, and opinions about where it is useful, where it is unreliable, and how to improve its output.
- Comfort saying no, or not yet, to a stakeholder without damaging the relationship.
How We WorkWe value leaders who take ownership, prefer simple systems, treat operations as part of engineering, ask questions when designs are unclear, give thoughtful feedback, and balance speed with reliability.
We expect managers to build teams that use AI aggressively but not uncritically, and to share what they learn so the whole organization improves.
We also expect managers to be honest about capacity. Protecting a team's ability to do sound work is part of the job, not an obstacle to it.
Qualifications- Education: Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Applied Mathematics, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
- Experience: Minimum 7 years in software engineering, including at least 2 years directly managing software engineers, with a track record of delivering and operating production systems.
Table Stakes:- Direct people-management experience - hiring, performance management, and career development.
- A background building, shipping, and operating production software.
- Hands on keyboard on a weekly basis - reading code, reviewing pull requests, prototyping, or contributing directly - and the intent to keep working that way as a manager.
- Enough current technical depth to contribute to design reviews and evaluate technical tradeoffs.
- Understanding of modular design, APIs, testing, error handling, and maintainability.
- Working knowledge of relational data concepts, including schemas, keys, transactions, and data integrity.
- Experience owning systems through deployment, monitoring, incident response, and maintenance.
- Demonstrated ability to influence peers and stakeholders who do not report to them.
- Active use of AI for more than code completion, and sound judgment when evaluating AI-generated output.
Soft Skills:- People Leadership: Grows engineers deliberately. Gives direct feedback early. Builds a team that performs without constant supervision.
- Influence Without Authority: Earns a seat in decisions made by teams they do not manage. Partners with tech leads and product managers rather than escalating around them.
- Communication: Explains technical constraints to non-technical stakeholders without oversimplifying or providing information overload.
- Product Partnership: Understands the product context well enough to challenge a plan on its merits, and disciplined enough not to relitigate priorities that are not theirs to set.
- Judgment: Knows which decisions to make, which to delegate, and which to escalate. Balances delivery velocity with long-term system health.
Total RewardsZoro's total compensation plan includes our Zoro Incentive Plan (ZIP) that is designed to foster and reward our team members for strong performance. Total compensation will be highly competitive.
In addition to competitive compensation, Zoro offers comprehensive benefits and perks including:
- Medical, dental, vision, and life insurance plans with coverage starting on day one of employment
- Maternity support programs, nursing benefits, and up to 14 weeks paid leave for birth parents and up to 4 weeks paid leave for non-birth parents. We also support growing your family through access to adoption assistance program
- 6 free sessions each year with a licensed therapist and Wellhub portal membership to support your mental and emotional wellbeing
- At least 18 paid time off days annually for full-time employees and 6 company holidays per year
- 6% company contribution to a 401K Retirement Savings Plan each pay period, no employee contribution required
- Tuition reimbursement, student loan refinancing and access to financial counseling, education, and tools
- Charitable Gift Program - match gift to an eligible educational, cultural, community health, and human service organizations
- Employee discounts and admission to various civic and cultural institutions around Chicago
- Zoro office perks including coffee bar, beer on tap, unlimited snacks, access to the onsite gym, and incredible city skyline views
For additional information and details regarding our benefits and our parent company, W. W. Grainger, please click on the link here.
The pay range provided is not a guarantee of compensation. The range listed reflects the expected base pay for this position at the time of posting, based on the role's job grade. Actual compensation may vary depending on factors such as location, relevant experience and individual qualifications.
Illinois
$127,100-$211,900 USD
