About the RoleAs a
Senior Platform Software Engineer on Zoro's Enterprise Platform Engineering group, you'll directly influence company-wide engineering productivity, operational resilience, and customer experience by building core infrastructure relied upon by every major area of our business. This role combines deep technical expertise, strategic technical leadership, and influential communication to improve Zoro's foundational technology platforms; enabling rapid, safe, and scalable development across more than 20 engineering teams.
This position is ideal for a senior engineer who thrives leading without direct authority, enjoys tackling ambiguous challenges, and deeply values both developer experience and system reliability.
Key Responsibilities- Design, code, and ship scalable, high-performance platform services and developer tools that enhance system resilience and significantly accelerate developer velocity across Zoro.
- Lead strategic technical decisions, shape platform roadmaps, and proactively identify opportunities for long-term improvements in efficiency, reliability, and maintainability.
- Act as a technical leader and advocate for engineering excellence across multiple teams, setting standards, influencing best practices, and mentoring engineers of varied backgrounds.
- Translate complex and ambiguous business requirements into clear, actionable technical solutions, balancing short-term needs with long-term strategy and technical vision.
- Drive the end-to-end lifecycle of critical systems-from initial design to deployment, monitoring, compliance (PCI/SOX), and operational rigor.
- Present technical strategies, proposals, and results confidently to senior stakeholders, clearly demonstrating how technical initiatives drive business outcomes.
- Collaborate cross-functionally with stakeholders across engineering, product, fulfillment, category, and customer service teams to deliver cohesive and impactful platform solutions.
- Lead rapid technical resolution for significant production incidents, mentor team members in effective incident management practices, and contribute to continuous improvement initiatives enhancing system reliability.
- Foster a collaborative, inclusive culture that encourages continuous learning, healthy collaboration, and respect for diverse technical viewpoints.
- Continuously improve team and organizational effectiveness, retiring tech debt, enhancing engineering workflows, and celebrating iterative improvements.
- Facilitate and model responsible adoption of agentic software engineering practices across teams, establishing patterns that improve developer velocity, testing rigor, documentation quality, and operational safety.
Minimum Qualifications- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or equivalent practical experience.
- 6+ years experience building, testing, and operating complex backend or platform engineering systems in production.
- Expert-level proficiency in at least one major programming language (Python, TypeScript, Java, or equivalent) with practical knowledge of others.
- Demonstrated ability to design and operate highly available, scalable distributed systems using cloud infrastructure and Infrastructure as Code tools (Terraform preferred).
- Deep expertise in CI/CD automation, testing frameworks, and observability tooling (e.g., Datadog, Prometheus).
- Hands-on experience managing and optimizing containerized environments (Kubernetes, Cloud Run).
- Proven record of operational excellence, including participation in on-call rotations and debugging complex production issues across multiple services.
- Strong strategic communication skills, capable of clearly articulating technical proposals to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
- Hands-on experience with AI-assisted engineering workflows that maintain code quality, system reliability, security, and compliance requirements.
Preferred Qualifications- Experience designing and managing internal developer platforms, tools, or frameworks used widely across multiple teams or departments.
- History of significantly influencing technical roadmaps, architectural standards, and engineering practices across teams.
- Proven ability to collaborate effectively with senior business leaders, translating technical strategy into measurable business value.
- Regular contributions to technical documentation, architecture decision records (ADRs), RFCs, or similar strategic technical artifacts.
- Passion for mentoring, coaching, and continuous professional growth within a technology-focused environment.
- Track record of influencing team-level adoption of AI tooling with measurable improvements in delivery speed, defect reduction, or operational stability.
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
$105,100-$175,100 USD
