Senior Manager, Application Engineering - Payment Systems

Job Summary:

The Senior Manager, Technology – Payment Systems serves as the application-level technical authority for one of the most critical domains within the Retail & Consumer Technology organization, supporting all in-store and digital payment transactions across Walgreens.

This role requires demonstrated experience as an application technical lead, senior software engineering lead, hands-on engineering manager, or application architect. Candidates must bring hands-on application development experience and maintain current, working knowledge of how modern enterprise applications are designed, built, integrated, supported, and scaled. The individual must be capable of engaging deeply in architecture discussions, evaluating system design decisions, reviewing vendor-built solutions, understanding code-level impacts, and confidently responding to detailed technical questions.

The Senior Manager is accountable for the stability, performance, and strategic evolution of a highly integrated, enterprise-scale payment platform operating in a 100% vendor-led development model. This includes ownership of application-level architecture, system integrations, transaction flows, production incident resolution, and tradeoff decisions related to scalability, cost, and risk.

In addition to serving as the technical authority, the role provides leadership to a lean internal team and drives accountability across external development partners. Success requires strong technical judgment, operational ownership, hands-on application engineering credibility, and the ability to clearly communicate complex system behavior and architectural decisions to both technical and executive stakeholders.

Technical Interview Requirement: Candidates should be prepared to participate in a technical interview focused on application architecture, system design, integrations, production support, troubleshooting, code-level problem solving, vendor solution oversight, and technical decision-making. This role requires the ability to engage deeply in technical discussions and demonstrate hands-on application engineering credibility.

Location Requirement: This position is based in Deerfield, Illinois and follows a hybrid work model of four days onsite and one day remote each week. Regular onsite presence in Deerfield is required for this role.

Job Responsibilities:

• Manages efforts of others in the achievement of the strategic and operational objectives for the specified area of responsibility. Leads the specified area of responsibility to ensure performance standards are conducive to company standards and all goals and objectives are met in a timely and organized fashion.
• Shares information cross-functionally to improve workflow processes. Interacts with direct reports and peers in management / customers / vendors to share information and improve cross-departmental processes.
• Manages problems and issues pro-actively, including timely resolution and the identification of remediation opportunities. Identifies and resolve systemic issues to prevent them from repeating.
• Oversees the development of technical/business approaches and new or enhanced technical tools. Defines and implements consistent key IT key performance indicators in order to enhance the operational focus of the IT department.
• Manages the vendor relationship including determining in scope and out of scope work, working through any interpretation of contract terms and monitoring/reviewing SLA adherence. Performs deep dive research on missed SLAs Partners with the vendor to drive continuous improvement resulting in improved service and/or lower cost.
• Ensures delivery against agreed upon SLAs and overall service delivery of operational activities. Reviews and approves any request prioritizations.
• Understands short and long-term goals and objectives and recommend technical solutions and services.
• Maintains organization's effectiveness and efficiency by defining, delivering, and supporting strategic plans for implementing information technologies.
• Responsible for executing on functional and business goals for the group. Anticipates process-centric, people- centric, and operations-centric ideas, issues and opportunities to move the business forward.
• May develop budget for functional area. Manages budget to plan and is responsible for meeting/delivering against budgetary goals and objectives.
• Researches and recommends new and emerging technologies and services within set budget that will enhance Company's overall business performance.
• Makes recommendations for specified area of responsibility regarding the operating plans for specified area of responsibility, then, based on prevailing conditions may realign the daily operations of assigned area.
• Influences individuals within and outside the IT department. Prepares and presents reports to all levels of leadership and staff.
• Stays abreast of industry leading best practices and brings them to the attention of the leadership team for innovative application. Develops and leverages partnerships (and relationships) with internal and external stakeholders to meet business needs.
• Oversees and manages managers, and individual contributors. Allocates available resources to meet operating objectives. Ensures the ongoing training and development of direct reports. Develops and mentors staff through on-boarding, open communication, training and development opportunities and performance management processes; builds and maintains employee morale and motivation; ensures the team is appropriately staffed with required competencies; fosters a diverse and inclusive workplace.

About Walgreens
Founded in 1901, Walgreens ( proudly serves nearly 9 million customers and patients each day across its approximately 8,500 stores throughout the U.S. and Puerto Rico. Walgreens has approximately 220,000 team members, including nearly 90,000 healthcare service providers, and is committed to being the first choice for pharmacy, retail and health services, building trusted relationships that create healthier futures for customers, patients, team members and communities.

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree and at least 6 years of experience in IT, Engineering, Accounting, Finance, Consulting, Strategy, Project/Program Management and/or Analytics OR a High School diploma/GED and at least 9 years of experience in IT, Accounting, Finance, Consulting, Strategy, Technical Project/Program Management and/or Analytics
• Experience establishing & maintaining relationships with individuals at all levels of the organization, including the executive level.
• Experience with vendor and vendor contract management, including SLA review.
• Experience diagnosing, isolating, and resolving complex issues and recommending and implementing strategies to resolve problems
• Experience leading cross-functional teams.
• Experience with vendor and vendor contract management, including SLA review.
• At least 2 years of experience contributing to financial decisions in the workplace.
• At least 3 years of direct leadership, indirect leadership and/or cross-functional team leadership.
• Willing to travel up to/at least 10% of the time for business purposes (within state and out of state).

Preferred Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree and at least 7 years of experience in IT, Accounting, Finance, Consulting, Strategy and/or Analytics OR a High School diploma/GED and at least 10 years of experience in IT, Accounting, Finance, Consulting, Strategy and/or Analytics.

• Experience in a technical lead, senior engineering lead, or architecture-focused leadership role , with responsibility for reviewing and influencing system design and technical decisions (hands-on coding not required).

• Experience supporting complex, highly integrated enterprise platforms , ideally in transaction-heavy or mission-critical domains such as payments or commerce.

• Demonstrated ability to engage in architecture- and design-level technical discussions , explain system behavior and tradeoffs, and challenge vendor-provided solutions when appropriate.

• Experience operating in vendor-led development environments , including oversight of third-party teams, review of technical designs, and accountability for platform stability, scalability, and cost.

  We will consider employment of qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.
  #LI-JW1

We will consider employment of qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

The Salary below is being provided to promote pay transparency and equal employment opportunities at Walgreens. The actual hourly salary within this range that you will be offered will depend on a variety of factors including geography, skills and abilities, education, experience and other relevant factors. This role will remain open until filled. To review benefits, please click here jobs.walgreens.com/benefits. If you are applying on a job board or unable to click on the link, please copy and paste this URL into your browser jobs.walgreens.com/benefits

Salary Range: $136000 - $231300 / Salaried