About the role
Company Summary Zoro.com is a leading eCommerce platform offering nearly 12 million tools, parts and supplies for our business customers. Launched in 2011, we brought a B2C-like experience to the B2B industry, and continue to be at the forefront of digital innovation at the intersection of technology and distribution. We have rapidly grown to over $1 billion in annual revenue and we’re just getting started! About the Role Join 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 Work We 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 Rewards Zoro’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 Our Culture Zoro was founded in 2011 with a simple idea: make it easy for businesses to get the tools, parts, and supplies they need to keep things running. We've grown by staying curious, moving quickly, and solving everyday challenges in smart, practical ways. Backed by W.W. Grainger and inspired by our endless assortment business model, we’re on a clear path toward our next big milestone: $2 billion in revenue—and beyond. At Zoro, we don’t just follow a playbook—we help build it. You’ll get to work on real problems with a supportive team that shares ideas freely, learns from each other, and celebrates wins together. Our culture is grounded in values that guide how we show up every day: Winning & Learning Together , Being Customer Obsessed , Being Transparent , and Taking Ownership . We don’t have all the answers, but we’re always asking good questions. Zoro’s culture has been recognized by Fortune, Best Places to Work, and Built In Chicago—but the recognition we care about most comes from our team members, who make this place what it is. We also know that flexibility matters. Our hybrid work model gives you space to focus and the flexibility to live your life — asking team members to be onsite at least two days a week. Our Chicago HQ (right above Ogilvie Transportation Center in the Accenture Tower) is always open and ready for connection, collaboration, or just a good cup of coffee. At Zoro, we’re growing fast toward big aspirations — and we’re continuously excited about the new challenges we get to solve together. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex (including pregnancy), national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity or expression, protected veteran status, or any other protected characteristic under federal, state, or local law. We are proud to be an equal opportunity workplace. We are also committed to fostering an inclusive, accessible work environment that includes both providing reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities during the application and hiring process as well as throughout the course of one’s employment. Should you need a reasonable accommodation during the application and selection process, including, but not limited to use of our website, any part of the application, interview, or hiring process, please advise us so that we can provide appropriate assistance.