Engineering Manager – Commerce Core (m/f/d)

You’re passionate about building robust, scalable commerce products and believe great platforms are created by empowered teams with strong technical ownership. You think in systems, care deeply about product quality, and love helping engineers grow while delivering meaningful impact for customers, partners, and the open-source community. Shopware is an international, leading open commerce platform for ambitious companies in digital commerce. With an API-first approach, maximum flexibility, and a strong community, we create future-oriented e-commerce solutions. Our 450 employees across Europe share a passion for innovation, openness, and team spirit. The Commerce Core unit builds and maintains the open-source Shopware eCommerce platform at the heart of our product. We’re looking for an Engineering Manager to lead one of the teams within Commerce Core. In this role, you’ll combine people leadership, technical guidance, and product collaboration to help your team deliver high-quality platform capabilities, maintain core commerce functionality, and continuously improve the foundations that thousands of merchants, developers, and partners rely on every day. This position can be filled on-site, hybrid, but also full-remote within Germany or specific European countries where we are registered. Your work location will be agreed upon in advance and forms the basis of your employment contract. These are your tasks: Team Leadership & Ownership You lead, coach, and support a software engineering team within the Commerce Core unit. You foster an open, trust-based, and feedback-driven team culture where engineers can do their best work. You work closely with Product Management to shape your team’s roadmap in alignment with Shopware’s product and platform strategy. You help your team balance product delivery, technical quality, maintenance, and long-term platform evolution. You collaborate closely with other teams in Shopware including but not limited to other Commerce Core teams, Cloud teams, QA, Design, DevRel, and Partner-facing teams. Product & Platform Delivery You take ownership of your team’s delivery outcomes and ensure reliable execution of roadmap initiatives. You help maintain and evolve key areas of the Shopware platform, ensuring they remain scalable, extensible, and robust. You guide technical decision-making and support engineers in finding pragmatic, sustainable solutions. You contribute hands-on where needed while enabling your team to take strong ownership of implementation and quality. You ensure that platform changes are built with merchants, partners, extension developers, and long-term maintainability in mind. Technical Excellence & Engineering Practices You drive continuous improvement in architecture, code quality, testing standards, and operational reliability. You help reduce technical debt and ensure your team contributes to a stable and future-ready commerce platform. You support strong engineering practices around planning, delivery, reviews, documentation, observability, and incident learning. You act as a sparring partner for engineers and help translate complex technical topics into clear decisions and priorities. You promote consistency and collaboration across teams working on shared platform capabilities. People Development & Collaboration You mentor engineers, support career growth, and provide regular feedback through 1:1s and development conversations. You help the team grow through hiring, onboarding, capability building, and clear role expectations. You create an environment where ownership, accountability, and collaboration are actively encouraged. You work with stakeholders across Product, Engineering, and the wider Shopware ecosystem to align priorities and manage dependencies. You represent your team’s work clearly and transparently across the Commerce Core unit. Expected Impact First 12 Months You build a clear understanding of your team’s domain, responsibilities, and current technical challenges. You establish strong team rituals, delivery practices, and feedback loops. You improve team focus, predictability, and ownership of core platform capabilities. You help deliver meaningful product and platform improvements for merchants, developers, and partners. You contribute to a healthier, more maintainable, and more scalable Commerce Core platform. This is what you’ll bring to the table: You have at least two years of experience leading software engineering teams and seven years of experience in software engineering, ideally with a focus on backend, platform, or product engineering. You have strong experience with PHP and modern backend development and at least one additional programming language, such as Go, JavaScript/TypeScript, Java, Python, or a similar language, which is considered a strong advantage. You have experience working with service-oriented architectures, cloud environments, or cloud-native development. You have experience building or maintaining scalable software platforms, APIs, or complex product systems. You have a strong understanding of software architecture, testing practices, maintainability, and operational excellence. Experience working on open-source platforms, commerce systems, partner ecosystems, or extension-based products is considered a strong plus. You are able to combine people leadership, strategic thinking, and hands-on technical contribution whenever needed. With your excellent communication and stakeholder management skills, you are comfortable collaborating with engineering and product teams. You take a product-minded engineering approach and demonstrate strong empathy for merchants, developers, partners, and internal teams. You are professionally proficient in English. German language skills are considered a plus. What makes this role special Real Open-Source Impact: Work on an open commerce platform with a strong open-source foundation. Your decisions don’t just impact internal teams — they influence a global developer ecosystem. Close to the Community: Engage directly with our active developer and partner community. Gather feedback, test ideas, and see your improvements adopted in real time. Shopware Community Day (SCD) & Events: Be part of flagship events like Shopware Community Day, where developers, partners, and innovators come together. Share your vision, connect with builders, and shape the future of the ecosystem. Ecosystem at Scale: Contribute to a fast-growing international ecosystem of agencies, tech partners, and extension developers building on Shopware every day. Developer-First Culture: Join a company that truly values Developer Experience as a strategic priority — not an afterthought. Visible Impact: Your work improves onboarding, tooling, APIs, and workflows for thousands of developers worldwide. Space to Experiment: Drive meaningful change, introduce best practices, and shape long-term DX strategy in a platform-oriented environment. This is what we offer you: Company Culture: Open culture with flat hierarchies, where individual initiative is encouraged. Employment Contracts: Permanent positions that offer long-term security. Flexibility: Flexible working hours and options for mobile work and full-remote contracts. Equipment: Freedom to choose your preferred work hardware. Onboarding: Well-structured onboarding with support from a personal "buddy." Work Environment: An inspiring environment with dedicated colleagues and a dynamic community. Development Opportunities: Diverse opportunities for personal growth and development. Additional Benefits: Attractive perks such as company pension plans, health programs, and regular team events. ... and much more! Your personal contact for this position is Josephine Scheffler, and she is happy to answer any questions you may have! Protecting your personal data is a top priority for us. You can find our applicant information here.