Engineering Manager, Core E-Commerce Platform

Engineering Manager | Java & E-commerce Platforms Location: Kuwait Employment Type: Full-time | Permanent Industry: E-commerce / Retail Technology Recruitment Partner: Ameera Talent Solutions Ltd About the Opportunity Ameera Talent Solutions is recruiting an experienced Engineering Manager on behalf of a leading organisation operating in the e-commerce and digital technology sector. This is an opportunity for a technically strong engineering leader to take ownership of business-critical backend platforms, lead high-performing development teams and influence the architecture, scalability and reliability of complex transactional systems. We're looking for someone who has built and operated high-traffic platforms, understands the challenges of large-scale e-commerce and remains technically hands-on while developing strong engineering teams. Key Responsibilities Engineering Leadership & Architecture • Lead, mentor and develop backend engineering teams and technical leads. • Provide technical direction across Java, Spring Boot, microservices and distributed systems. • Contribute actively to architecture reviews, system design and technical decision-making. • Drive improvements in scalability, system performance, resilience and maintainability. • Identify and address technical debt, architectural risks and performance bottlenecks. E-commerce Platforms & Scalability • Oversee engineering delivery across critical e-commerce capabilities, potentially including product catalogues, search, pricing, promotions, shopping carts, checkout and payments. • Design and optimise systems supporting high transaction volumes, concurrent users and peak shopping periods. • Improve API performance, caching, database efficiency and system reliability. • Lead production incident investigations, root-cause analysis and sustainable technical improvements. Engineering Excellence & Delivery • Establish strong engineering practices across coding, testing, CI/CD, observability and deployment. • Introduce measurable service reliability and performance objectives. • Improve release quality, delivery predictability and operational efficiency. • Work closely with Product, Architecture, DevOps, QA and Security teams. • Build a culture of technical ownership, accountability and continuous improvement. AI-Assisted Engineering • Champion practical adoption of AI-assisted software development. • Apply AI coding assistants and agentic development tools to improve engineering productivity. • Support responsible use of AI for code reviews, testing, debugging, documentation and refactoring. • Evaluate new AI development tools while maintaining strong security, code quality and engineering standards. What We're Looking For: Essential Experience • 10+ years of professional software engineering experience, including substantial backend development. • 3+ years in an Engineering Manager, Technical Manager, Engineering Lead or comparable leadership position. • Strong hands-on technical background in Java and Spring Boot. • Proven experience designing, scaling and supporting distributed systems and microservices in production. • Experience working with high-traffic, transaction-intensive applications. • Strong knowledge of REST APIs, event-driven architecture, messaging, caching and database optimisation. • Demonstrated ability to lead engineers while remaining actively involved in architecture and technical decisions. • Experience improving production reliability, engineering practices and team performance. Highly Desirable • Experience in e-commerce, online marketplaces, retail technology or large-scale digital consumer platforms. • Kafka or equivalent messaging technologies. • Redis, Elasticsearch or OpenSearch. • SQL and NoSQL databases. • AWS or comparable cloud platforms. • Docker, Kubernetes and CI/CD. • Observability, monitoring and application performance management. • Practical experience with AI coding assistants and AI-driven engineering workflows. What Makes a Strong Candidate? We're particularly interested in Engineering Managers who can demonstrate: • Ownership of high-volume, business-critical production systems. • Successful management of platform performance during peak traffic periods. • Measurable improvements in API response times, availability or system scalability. • Strong architectural judgement and the ability to challenge technical decisions. • A track record of developing engineers and future technical leaders. • Practical understanding of how AI can improve engineering productivity without compromising quality. This is a technical engineering leadership position, not a purely project management or delivery management role. Interested? If you're an experienced Engineering Manager with a strong Java backend background and a passion for building scalable, reliable digital platforms, we'd welcome a conversation. Apply directly through LinkedIn or contact: Ameera Talent Solutions Ltd [email protected] • All applications will be handled confidentially. Show more Show less