2025-01-23 11:16:08

Director of Engineering, Frontend technologies, Marketplace (Limited-time Relocation Bonus)

Vinted, UAB
8100 - 11000 €/m Gross

Job Description

We are looking for a Director of Engineering to lead the Frontend Technologies domain within Marketplace. In this role, your mission will be two-fold:

1. Pivot our frontend setup for bigger efficiency: we have been operating in mostly the same frontend setup for at least 6 years, and recognize that change is imminent.

2. Drive strategic engineering initiatives: architect and implement platform-specific changes that enhance modularity, autonomy, resilience, and performance across Android, iOS, and Web.

You will have to balance and prioritize foundational capabilities - such as Design Systems, CI/CD, Modularization, App Releases, Performance, and Global UI quality - to optimize both frontend developer velocity and user satisfaction.

You will lead 4 Engineering Managers and 3 Staff Engineers and set and implement the FE strategy, which will impact the roadmaps of 9 Product domains within the Marketplace.

Strategically:

  • Ensure the most effective frontend setup for the Marketplace. We have 40+ teams, each with 3 frontend engineers (iOS, Android, and Web) in the Marketplace unit. We know this will look different in two years. Deciding what different means, and getting 9 product domains to fund it, is the job
  • Drive Technology Strategy: Set and drive the future technology strategy for frontends, establishing a modular, scalable architecture that enables rapid development and strategic growth. Basically - raise the technological bar for all Marketplace unit.
  • Refine the domain's identity: Take sole ownership of shaping its future, successfully integrating Design Systems and engineering to treat our frontend platforms as a cohesive product.

Tactically:

  • Lead frontends: Lead a horizontal, platform-focused domain containing Android, iOS, Web, and Design System teams.
  • Lead Initiatives: Oversee Marketplace-wide technical tooling, core libraries, and frameworks. Lead strategic projects, i.e., frontend modularization and modernization (SwiftUI/Jetpack Compose), native automated testing.
  • Elevate global UI quality: Integrate design systems and accessibility into the frontend ecosystem to consolidate technical, visual and interaction quality standards. Support UI experimentation.
  • Ensure Resilience & Reliability: Maintain robust release processes, Marketplace frontend quality, and performance monitoring to reduce downtime and ensure a consistent member experience.
  • Innovate & Optimize: Drive AI-efficiency enablement in frontend development and explore cross-platform frontend development opportunities to increase engineering speed and productivity.

A lot of this work will be influencing without formal authority: Champion the frontend technical vision among your director peers, influencing the leaders of 9 Product domains to accommodate and prioritize platform-wide changes across 40+ teams.

How much of a technical acumen? Enough to have in depth conversations with our direct reports. You will have 4 strong technical EMs reporting to you, as well as 3 world-class staff engineers. We don’t think you need to match their technical competencies (that’s a stretch!), but you have to be able to speak their language, understand problems at their essence, and be able to consolidate and multiply their inputs, including being able to disagree objectively.

Leadership: you have a track record of making level change in the organizations that you lead (rather than 20% change). Consolidating your team views and making coherent strategy out of those views is step one. Step two is even more important: being able to implement these changes in your domain, and more so - across other domains in the marketplace - is a foundational ability you carry. In practice, that means you have at least 2 years of experience leading leaders and 5 years of experience influencing without authority.

Change horizon: You are comfortable holding two timeframes at once. We need someone who can say, "Here is what our frontend setup should look like in two years, and here is why" AND name the clear deliverable that has to ship in the first quarter to make that end state reachable. Leaders who only do the second are common. Leaders who only do the first are entertaining. We need both.

What this role is not: This is not a hands-on frontend or release-engineering role. You will not be tuning CI, owning the release train, or reviewing architecture decisions yourself — you’ll have 4 strong EMs and 3 Staff Engineers close to the details, and your job is to turn their technical judgment into direction, alignment, and organizational change. If your strongest work is deep in the mechanics, you'll be underused here. If your strongest work is changing how 40+ teams operate, you'll be busy.

Requirements

  • You have to be able to speak the language of technical EMs and Staff Engineers, understand problems at their essence, and be able to consolidate and multiply their inputs, including being able to disagree objectively.
  • You have a track record of making level change in the organizations that you lead (rather than 20% change).
  • You have at least 2 years of experience leading leaders and 5 years of experience influencing without authority.
  • You are comfortable holding two timeframes at once, able to say what the frontend setup should look like in two years and name the clear deliverable that has to ship in the first quarter to make that end state reachable.

Company offers

  • Joining us from outside Lithuania? You're eligible for our Limited-time Relocation Package! It includes a 230k gross bonus and 2 months of temporary housing (check for more info).
  • The opportunity to benefit from our share options programme
  • 25 working days of holiday
  • Access to all the tools & tech needed for work
  • Home office support: we provide IT workstation equipment and a personal budget of up to 540 for home workplace furniture
  • Private health insurance
  • Mental and emotional health support through the Mindletic app
  • Frequent team-building events
  • A personal monthly budget for shopping on Vinted
  • The opportunity to spend up to 90 days per year - 21 of which can be spent working outside of the EU - on workation
  • A dog-friendly office
  • In Vilnius office: Gym & in-house meals at friendly prices
  • In Kaunas office: a monthly lunch allowance, and a once-a-week provided in-house lunch and breakfast