Senior Manager of Engineering -- Warehouse Operations Technology

Job Description

Job Description

Description:

ABOUT BUYWANDER

BuyWander is rebuilding the $850B retail returns industry. We take chaotic truckloads of returned goods and transform them into a fast, fun, treasure-hunt shopping experience powered by AI, real-time auctions, and in-store pickup.

We're not just building a marketplace. We're building a daily habit — and behind every item a customer bids on is a physical operation that receives, identifies, grades, and stores it. That operation is yours to lead and evolve.

THE ROLE

We're looking for a Senior Engineering Leader to own and evolve the technology stack that powers everything inside our warehouse — from the moment a truck backs up to our dock, to the moment a customer walks out with their item.

We have an existing software foundation and an existing engineering team. What we need now is a visionary leader who can drive quality, velocity, and smart decision-making to take it to the next level.

This role is on-site in Seattle, WA — and that's intentional. You'll be on the warehouse floor regularly, watching how associates work, where friction lives, and what a 6am truck arrival actually looks like. That firsthand context is non-negotiable for building software that works in the real world.

You'll work with an existing engineering team and grow it, partner closely with warehouse ops leadership, and make the critical calls on what to build, what to buy, and what to integrate — because we're not here to reinvent the wheel, we're here to win.

WHAT YOU'LL OWN

Inbound & Receiving Technology

• Lead the evolution of software managing truck arrivals, dock scheduling, and unload workflows
• Drive the product identification and condition grading pipeline — barcode scanning, AI-assisted image recognition, and human-in-the-loop review
• Ensure systems turn a chaotic truckload into clean, searchable, auction-ready inventory records in minutes, not hours

Inventory Management System

• Own the roadmap for our internal inventory platform — item cataloging, location tracking, condition states, and cycle counts
• Ensure the real-time data layer accurately powers availability, pricing, and auction eligibility across the marketplace
• Evaluate and implement bin mapping, slotting, and zone optimization — build or buy what gets us there fastest

In-Store Fulfillment Operations

• Own the software that powers picking, packing, and staging for in-store customer pickup
• Build tools that guide warehouse associates through fulfillment workflows — fast, accurate, and intuitive on the floor
• Close the loop between a winning bid and a smooth in-store handoff experience

Engineering Team Leadership

• Lead, mentor, and grow the existing warehouse technology engineering team
• Drive a culture of quality, velocity, and ownership — your team ships things that work and fixes things that don't
• Define engineering standards, sprint cadence, code review, release management, and on-call practices for systems that cannot go down
• Partner closely with Ops, Data, and Marketplace engineering to keep the full stack aligned

Build vs. Buy Decision Ownership

• One of your most critical responsibilities: evaluate when to build custom software, when to integrate a best-in-class vendor, and when to configure an existing tool
• You'll make these calls regularly — and you'll own the outcomes
• Bring a pragmatic, ROI-driven lens to every major technology decision

Instrumentation & Ops Analytics

• Define and own the metrics that matter: units/hour, dock-to-shelf time, pick accuracy, and in-store handoff SLA
• Build dashboards and alerting so ops leadership has real-time visibility and can act on it

WHY THIS ROLE IS DIFFERENT

Most companies buy a WMS off the shelf and call it a day. We're doing something harder and more interesting.

Our inventory is uniquely chaotic — thousands of SKUs, no two items alike, condition grading that requires intelligence, and a live auction marketplace that demands real-time accuracy. You'll be handed problems like: "A truck just arrived with 2,000 mixed items and we need them auction-ready in 4 hours — what do we build, what do we buy, and how do we make it happen?"

This is a role for someone who gets energy from the floor — who wants to watch a picker struggle with a workflow and immediately start designing the fix. The best ideas here come from being present, not from a conference room.

BENEFITS

• Competitive salary + performance bonuses
• Meaningful equity in a category-defining company
• Health, Vision & Dental Insurance
• Unlimited PTO
• Annual Company Offsites
• 401K

WHAT YOU BRING

• Warehouse / Ops Tech Experience — You've built or owned WMS, OMS, or fulfillment systems in high-SKU, high-velocity environments. You speak the language of docks, bins, waves, and SLAs.
• Engineering Leadership — You've led and grown engineering teams. You set technical direction, drive accountability, and still get into the details when it matters.
• Build vs. Buy Judgment — You've made the call to integrate a vendor instead of building in-house, and you've made the opposite call too. You know how to evaluate both and live with the consequences.
• Systems Thinking — You design for reliability and scale. You know what happens when a scanner goes offline mid-shift or a fulfillment queue backs up on a busy Saturday morning.
• Ops-First Partnership — Your primary stakeholders are warehouse ops managers. You can spend a morning on the floor, understand a workflow end-to-end, and have a spec drafted by afternoon.
• Velocity Without Cutting Corners — You push teams to ship fast and ship right. You know the difference between tech debt that's fine and tech debt that will hurt you at 3x scale.
• Modern Dev Practices — You leverage AI coding tools to accelerate execution and set the bar for code quality, testing, and incident response on your team.

Tech context: C#/Python, FastAPI, Vue/Nuxt, PostgreSQL, real-time event streams, mobile/tablet scanning UX, AI/ML for image-based grading. EXPERIENCE

• 7+ years of software engineering experience, with at least 3+ years in an engineering leadership role managing engineers, not just projects
• 3+ years of hands-on experience with Warehouse Management Systems (WMS), Order Management Systems (OMS), or fulfillment technology — ideally in environments with high SKU diversity, returns processing, liquidation, or recommerce
• Bonus: experience at companies like Optoro, B-Stock, BULQ, Liquidity Services, Happy Returns, Loop Returns, or any retailer or 3PL running a high-volume returns or liquidation operation
• Bonus: experience building or scaling in-store pickup or BOPIS (Buy Online, Pick Up In-Store) fulfillment workflows

BuyWander is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We make employment decisions based on qualifications, skills, merit, and business needs. We believe a range of skills, perspectives, and experiences strengthens our team and supports better outcomes for our employees and customers.