Director of Engineering Core Commerce Platform
Description
SPEED & SPIRIT is what we look for in our candidates, defined by some simple values that inspire us to BE DRIVEN in our performance, BE VIBRANT in our sporting legacy, BE TOGETHER in our team spirit, and to let our individual talent and experience shine. Applying for a job at PUMA is easy.
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YOUR MISSION
As Director of Engineering - Core Commerce Platform, you'll own the technology foundation that powers every commercial transaction across our DTC ecosystem - a portfolio of mission-critical commerce capabilities with direct, visible impact on the business.
This is a platform-first, API-first engineering leadership role at the heart of how PUMA sells online. You'll architect and deliver a composable commerce foundation built on best-in-class packaged solutions and open-source technologies, making every capability pluggable, scalable, and reusable across channels. AI-native engineering is core to how we build here: you'll embed intelligent automation, agentic workflows, and AI-driven decision-making directly into the commerce engine.
As PUMA continues to scale its DTC Engineering organization, our leaders are expected to be visible culture builders. These roles are office-based and require regular in-person collaboration to accelerate decision-making, strengthen team cohesion, foster innovation, and build a world-class engineering capability from the ground up.
Key Responsibilities & Scope of Ownership:
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Basket & Checkout - cart management, checkout orchestration, address, tax, and shipping services.
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Payments - payment gateway integrations, payment method management, fraud signals, refunds, and reconciliation.
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Cross Channel Inventory Availability - A centralized availability layer acting as the single source of truth across all channels, governed by real-time ATP calculation and network/channel segmentation.
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Omnichannel Order Management System (OMS) - order lifecycle, inventory allocation, split fulfilment, returns and exchanges.
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Post-Order - fulfilment tracking, consumer notifications, returns portal, and post-purchase experience.
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Social & Agentic Commerce - conversational commerce, social checkout integrations, AI agents for purchase assistance and order management.
API-First & Composable Commerce Architecture
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Define and execute a composable, API-first commerce architecture ensuring every capability is exposed as a clean, versioned, and well-documented API consumable by any channel (web, mobile, voice, agentic).
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Own the composable commerce reference architecture for DTC: MACH-aligned (Microservices, API-first, Cloud-native, Headless) services that integrate seamlessly with SFCC, Fluent Commerce, and APIGEE.
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Design for pluggability that ensures payment providers, fulfilment partners, and loyalty engines can be swapped or extended with minimal coupling.
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API governance - versioning strategy, deprecation policy, and contract testing.
Technology Vision & Product Roadmap Delivery
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Own the technology strategy and engineering roadmap for the Core Commerce Platform, delivered in partnership with the product organisation.
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Balance investment between packaged solution capabilities (SFCC, Fluent Commerce) and custom open-source components by making principled build/configure/extend/buy decisions.
Packaged Solutions & Open-Source Engineering
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Lead Salesforce Commerce Cloud (SFCC) platform engineering for commerce services.
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Technical & strategic ownership of OMS configuration, customisation, and integration including order routing rules, inventory network design, SLA management.
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Drive payments engineering: integration with payment gateways (e.g. Adyen, Razorpay), tokenisation, alternative payment methods, and reconciliation.
Scalability, Reliability & Governance
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Own SLAs, SLOs, and SLIs for all Core Commerce Platform services by ensuring 99.99%+ availability for checkout and payments during peak commerce events.
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Lead capacity planning, load testing, chaos engineering, and disaster recovery for commerce-critical services.
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Establish security standards for PCI-DSS compliance in payments, data encryption, and consumer PII protection across commerce services.
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Drive engineering standards and governance across the organisation's codebases and third-party integrations.
YOUR TALENT
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15+ years of engineering experience, with 5+ years leading platform or commerce engineering organisations with direct product delivery accountability.
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Strong experience in composable commerce architecture - microservices, event-driven systems, API-first design, and MACH principles.
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Hands-on architectural and implementation experience with Order Management Systems - ideally Fluent Commerce, or strong equivalent (Salesforce OMS, IBM Sterling, Kibo).
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Salesforce Commerce Cloud (SFCC) or equivalent platform background will be a plus.
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Experience with enterprise integrations, API management, and event-driven architectures, including API lifecycle management, integration patterns and distributed messaging platforms.
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Payments domain experience - gateway integrations, PCI-DSS compliance, 3DS2, tokenisation, alternative payment methods.
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Strong experience with Java/Spring Boot and distributed systems, including building, modernising, and scaling large-scale commerce services (Preferred experience with Order Orchestration, Inventory, Fulfilment, Returns & Exchanges and Loyalty).
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Experience with Social Commerce integrations (Instagram, WhatsApp, TikTok) and/or conversational/agentic commerce implementations.
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Strong understanding of data-intensive systems, distributed data architecture and SQL/NoSQL technologies.
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Track record of managing high-availability commerce systems through peak trading events (e.g. Black Friday, sale events).
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Experience with observability, reliability engineering and performance optimisation.
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Demonstrated adoption of AI-assisted engineering practices across the software development lifecycle to improve engineering productivity, software quality and efficiency.
Leadership Expectations
At PUMA, Directors are expected to operate as enterprise leaders who shape strategy, build capability, and create an environment where teams can deliver exceptional outcomes at speed and scale. Successful leaders combine commercial acumen, technical excellence, and people leadership while embodying the mindset and behaviours that define PUMA's culture.
Strategic Thinking & Vision
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Translate ambitious business goals into clear, executable technology strategies and roadmaps.
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Demonstrate the courage to challenge conventional thinking and advocate for innovative solutions that create long-term value.
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Operate effectively in ambiguity, providing clarity, direction, and confidence for teams and stakeholders.
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Balance immediate business priorities with long-term scalability, sustainability, and consumer impact.
Ownership & Accountability
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Take end-to-end ownership of outcomes, driving execution with determination and a strong focus on results.
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Set high standards for quality, reliability, and operational excellence while fostering a culture of accountability.
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Navigate setbacks and changing priorities with resilience, maintaining momentum through complexity and uncertainty.
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Make difficult decisions when required and stand behind them with conviction and integrity.
People & Team Leadership
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Build, develop, and retain diverse, high-performing teams capable of delivering at scale.
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Foster an environment of trust, inclusion, collaboration, and mutual respect where individuals can thrive.
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Create opportunities for learning, growth, and continuous development while empowering teams with autonomy and accountability.
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Celebrate successes, recognise contributions, and cultivate a culture where high performance and enjoyment go hand in hand.
Collaboration & Stakeholder Management
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