Senior Software Engineer (all genders

Our ML Platform team builds core ML platform capabilities powering Zalando’s AI‑native experiences. We provide low‑latency features, embeddings, real‑time inference infrastructure, and scalable ML platform capabilities that enable applied science and product teams to deliver search, recommendations, personalization, forecasting, and emerging GenAI use cases. Today we operate Zalando’s central Feature Store and are evolving the next generation of Kubernetes‑native AI runtime infrastructure.

• Own the design and implementation of scalable real‑time feature platforms, online serving infrastructure, and distributed ML runtime systems.
• Deliver and maintain SLOs for feature freshness, data quality, online/offline consistency, and runtime reliability; implement monitoring, observability, and safe deployment practices.
• Drive automation and self‑service (IaC, Git Ops, CI/CD), reusable deployment templates, and operational tooling that reduce friction for applied scientists and engineers.
• Implement identity and access management, secrets management, network isolation, and data governance built in from the start.
• Act as a key technical contributor for complex ML infrastructure challenges, mentor junior colleagues, and raise the engineering bar.
• Take ownership of technical design decisions and contribute to long‑term platform strategy with product and senior engineering leadership.
• Play an active role in hiring, onboarding, and mentoring engineers.

• 5+ years of experience building and operating ML infrastructure or large‑scale distributed systems on a cloud platform (AWS/EKS or equivalent) with strong skills in containerization, Kubernetes, and streaming/batch processing.
• Hands‑on experience with data/feature engineering pipelines, schema evolution, and ensuring online/offline consistency; familiarity with feature stores.
• Experience designing and operating low‑latency, high‑scale distributed systems meeting strict throughput targets.
• Experience operationalizing Kubernetes‑native ML workloads such as model serving and deployment using technologies like NVIDIA Triton, MLflow, Kubeflow, or ZenML.
• Background in building or integrating developer tooling, platform automation, or workflow systems.
• Track record of building reliable systems with SLOs, monitoring, and deployment safeguards; comfortable handling incident response and capacity planning.
• Proficient in security and governance (IAM, secrets management, network boundaries) and embedding compliance into engineering workflows.
• Strong collaboration and communication skills.

• 27 days of holiday a year for full‑time employees (+1 day for every calendar year up to 30 days).
• 2 paid volunteering days a year.
• Employee shares program.
• 40% off fashion and beauty products sold and shipped by Zalando, 30% off Lounge by Zalando, discounts from external partners.
• Relocation assistance available (subject to prior agreement).
• Family services, including counseling and support.
• Health and wellbeing options (including Wellhub).
• Mental health support and coaching available.
• Training platform and biannual peer‑to‑peer review.