Director of Engineering, Foundations

The Foundations domain is the cornerstone of Vinted’s infrastructure. This domain consists of 4 teams currently: DC, Traffic Routing, Compute, and Cloud. In this role, you will also lead two Staff Engineers dedicated to driving a scalable systems architecture.

We provide the essential resources - Data Centers, Servers, Networking, Compute platforms, and Public Cloud services - that enable our engineering teams to scale and deliver value to millions of users globally. As we grow at 30% YoY, our mission is to ensure a stable, high-performance runtime environment while eliminating infrastructure bottlenecks through clear ownership and unified routing solutions.

The team operates a massive-scale infrastructure with approximately 10,000 physical servers across data centers in Amsterdam, Brussels, and Düsseldorf. To support our global expansion and edge architecture in the US, we have recently launched a new site in Dallas. Our stack is built on Linux and open source, featuring multiple Kubernetes clusters and an Istio-based service mesh, a network built on the Sonic operating system, standardized cloud solutions on AWS, GCP, Cloudflare, and Fastly using a Terraform stack.

In this position, you’ll

• Mature the leadership team: lead, coach, and mentor a group of Engineering Managers and Staff Engineers to establish clear ownership and technical excellence.
• Hiring & team design: Take immediate ownership of the domain’s structure, with the specific goal of hiring two Staff Engineers within your first 90 days.
• Scale global infrastructure: proactively expand physical data center capacity and streamline server provisioning to support company-wide scaling.
• Drive traffic & networking: take end-to-end ownership of traffic management, including Edge architecture, API Gateways, and DNS.
• Own the compute layer: oversee the evolution and stability of our Kubernetes and Istio-based platforms.
• Manage resources & vendors: Take responsibility for domain-wide headcount planning and the management of vendor budgets in the tens of millions of euros.

• You have a proven ability to translate strategy into action, ensuring the timely and effective delivery of large-scale infrastructure initiatives.
• You have a proven track record of scaling large engineering organizations and maturing management teams, particularly by coaching managers.
• You can define a long-term roadmap for foundational infrastructure, aligning technical needs with broader business goals.
• You focus on operational excellence, defining KPIs and reporting frameworks to demonstrate the health and impact of your domain.
• You excel at navigating ambiguity and aligning plans with other Directors of Engineering and senior leadership.
• While you prioritize leadership, you have a deep understanding of scaling compute and networking layers at a global scale.
• You are self-aware - able to reflect, seek feedback, and admit mistakes.

• 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