- Location
- Chicago, Illinois, United States · Chicago
- Department
- Engineering
- Experience
- 6+ years
Description
Company Summary
Zoro.com is a leading eCommerce platform offering nearly 12 million tools, parts and supplies for our business customers. Launched in 2011, we brought a B2C-like experience to the B2B industry, and continue to be at the forefront of digital innovation at the intersection of technology and distribution. We have rapidly grown to over $1 billion in annual revenue and we’re just getting started!
About the Role
As a Senior Platform Software Engineer on Zoro’s Enterprise Platform Engineering group, you’ll directly influence company-wide engineering productivity, operational resilience, and customer experience by building core infrastructure relied upon by every major area of our business. This role combines deep technical expertise, strategic technical leadership, and influential communication to improve Zoro’s foundational technology platforms; enabling rapid, safe, and scalable development across more than 20 engineering teams.
This position is ideal for a senior engineer who thrives leading without direct authority, enjoys tackling ambiguous challenges, and deeply values both developer experience and system reliability.
Key Responsibilities
- Design, code, and ship scalable, high-performance platform services and developer tools that enhance system resilience and significantly accelerate developer velocity across Zoro.
- Lead strategic technical decisions, shape platform roadmaps, and proactively identify opportunities for long-term improvements in efficiency, reliability, and maintainability.
- Act as a technical leader and advocate for engineering excellence across multiple teams, setting standards, influencing best practices, and mentoring engineers of varied backgrounds.
- Translate complex and ambiguous business requirements into clear, actionable technical solutions, balancing short-term needs with long-term strategy and technical vision.
- Drive the end-to-end lifecycle of critical systems—from initial design to deployment, monitoring, compliance (PCI/SOX), and operational rigor.
- Present technical strategies, proposals, and results confidently to senior stakeholders, clearly demonstrating how technical initiatives drive business outcomes.
- Collaborate cross-functionally with stakeholders across engineering, product, fulfillment, category, and customer service teams to deliver cohesive and impactful platform solutions.
- Lead rapid technical resolution for significant production incidents, mentor team members in effective incident management practices, and contribute to continuous improvement initiatives enhancing system reliability.
- Foster a collaborative, inclusive culture that encourages continuous learning, healthy collaboration, and respect for diverse technical viewpoints.
- Continuously improve team and organizational effectiveness, retiring tech debt, enhancing engineering workflows, and celebrating iterative improvements.
- Facilitate and model responsible adoption of agentic software engineering practices across teams, establishing patterns that improve developer velocity, testing rigor, documentation quality, and operational safety.
Minimum Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or equivalent practical experience.
- 6+ years experience building, testing, and operating complex backend or platform engineering systems in production.
- Expert-level proficiency in at least one major programming language (Python, TypeScript, Java, or equivalent) with practical knowledge of others.
- Demonstrated ability to design and operate highly available, scalable distributed systems using cloud infrastructure and Infrastructure as Code tools (Terraform preferred).
- Deep expertise in CI/CD automation, testing frameworks, and observability tooling (e.g., Datadog, Prometheus).
- Hands-on experience managing and optimizing containerized environments (Kubernetes, Cloud Run).
- Proven record of operational excellence, including participation in on-call rotations and debugging complex production issues across multiple services.
- Strong strategic communication skills, capable of clearly articulating technical proposals to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
- Hands-on experience with AI-assisted engineering workflows that maintain code quality, system reliability, security, and compliance requirements.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience designing and managing internal developer platforms, tools, or frameworks used widely across multiple teams or departments.
- History of significantly influencing technical roadmaps, architectural standards, and engineering practices across teams.
- Proven ability to collaborate effectively with senior business leaders, translating technical strategy into measurable business value.
- Regular contributions to technical documentation, architecture decision records (ADRs), RFCs, or similar strategic technical artifacts.
- Passion for mentoring, coaching, and continuous professional growth within a technology-focused environment.
- Track record of influencing team-level adoption of AI tooling with measurable improvements in delivery speed, defect reduction, or operational stability.
Total Rewards
Zoro’s total compensation plan includes our Zoro Incentive Plan (ZIP) that is designed to foster and reward our team members for strong performance. Total compensation will be highly competitive.
In addition to competitive compensation, Zoro offers comprehensive benefits and perks including:
- Medical, dental, vision, and life insurance plans with coverage starting on day one of employment
- Maternity support programs, nursing benefits, and up to 14 weeks paid leave for birth parents and up to 4 weeks paid leave for non-birth parents. We also support growing your family through access to adoption assistance program
- 6 free sessions each year with a licensed therapist and Wellhub portal membership to support your mental and emotional wellbeing
- At least 18 paid time off days annually for full-time employees and 6 company holidays per year
- 6% company contribution to a 401K Retirement Savings Plan each pay period, no employee contribution required
- Tuition reimbursement, student loan refinancing and access to financial counseling, education, and tools
- Charitable Gift Program - match gift to an eligible educational, cultural, community health, and human service organizations
- Employee discounts and admission to various civic and cultural institutions around Chicago
- Zoro office perks including coffee bar, beer on tap, unlimited snacks, access to the onsite gym, and incredible city skyline views
For additional information and details regarding our benefits and our parent company, W. W. Grainger, please click on the link here.
The pay range provided is not a guarantee of compensation. The range listed reflects the expected base pay for this position at the time of posting, based on the role's job grade. Actual compensation may vary depending on factors such as location, relevant experience and individual qualifications.
Our Culture
Zoro was founded in 2011 with a simple idea: make it easy for businesses to get the tools, parts, and supplies they need to keep things running. We've grown by staying curious, moving quickly, and solving everyday challenges in smart, practical ways. Backed by W.W. Grainger and inspired by our endless assortment business model, we’re on a clear path toward our next big milestone: $2 billion in revenue—and beyond.
At Zoro, we don’t just follow a playbook—we help build it. You’ll get to work on real problems with a supportive team that shares ideas freely, learns from each other, and celebrates wins together. Our culture is grounded in values that guide how we show up every day: Winning & Learning Together, Being Customer Obsessed, Being Transparent, and Taking Ownership. We don’t have all the answers, but we’re always asking good questions.
Zoro’s culture has been recognized by Fortune, Best Places to Work, and Built In Chicago—but the recognition we care about most comes from our team members, who make this place what it is.
We also know that flexibility matters. Our hybrid work model gives you space to focus and the flexibility to live your life — asking team members to be onsite at least two days a week. Our Chicago HQ (right above Ogilvie Transportation Center in the Accenture Tower) is always open and ready for connection, collaboration, or just a good cup of coffee.
At Zoro, we’re growing fast toward big aspirations — and we’re continuously excited about the new challenges we get to solve together.
We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex (including pregnancy), national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity or expression, protected veteran status, or any other protected characteristic under federal, state, or local law. We are proud to be an equal opportunity workplace. We are also committed to fostering an inclusive, accessible work environment that includes both providing reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities during the application and hiring process as well as throughout the course of one’s employment. Should you need a reasonable accommodation during the application and selection process, including, but not limited to use of our website, any part of the application, interview, or hiring process, please advise us so that we can provide appropriate assistance.
