Spreetail is becoming a third-party logistics provider, taking on warehousing and fulfillment for external merchants and brands. As the SD3 Tech Lead, you will provide technical leadership for a key workstream within this platform — inventory management, order routing, warehouse operations, or client integrations — guiding design decisions and the engineers working within it, while reporting into and aligning with the Staff engineer(s) setting overall platform architecture.
This is a technical leadership role without formal people-management responsibility: you won't have direct reports, but you will set technical direction for your workstream, review designs and code, unblock engineers, and be the person others look to for judgment calls within your area.
This platform is being built AI-native from the start, so you'll help shape how forecasting, automated exception handling, and anomaly detection are integrated into production fulfillment workflows within your workstream — not just build individual features, but guide your team in building them.
Success in this role looks like:
A well-architected, reliable set of services within your workstream (inventory, order, warehouse ops, or client-integration domain)
Engineers on your workstream shipping confidently because designs and technical direction are clear
Reduced manual intervention in exception handling within your area through automation and, where relevant, AI-assisted detection
Design docs and technical decisions that Staff engineers can review quickly and trust
Faster onboarding of new 3PL clients through well-built, reusable components in your workstream
Engineers around you leveling up through your code reviews, design guidance, and mentorship
Key Responsibilities
Lead Technical Direction for Your Workstream
Own the technical design and quality of services within your workstream, such as:
Multi-client inventory management and warehouse allocation
Order intake, routing, and fulfillment orchestration
Shipment tracking and carrier integrations
Client onboarding and data integration (APIs, EDI, flat-file)
Returns and exception-handling workflows
Break down ambiguous problems into clear technical plans for the engineers on your workstream
Ensure designs align with overall platform architecture set by Staff engineers
Guide AI-Native Platform Capabilities Within Your Area
Lead the integration of forecasting, ETA prediction, or anomaly-detection signals into your workstream's fulfillment workflows
Partner with Staff engineers and data/ML engineers to translate model outputs into reliable operational logic
Set the standard for how exceptions and anomalies get detected and actioned automatically within your area
Lead Without Direct Reports
Act as the go-to technical decision-maker for engineers working in your workstream, without formal people-management authority
Run or contribute heavily to design reviews, unblocking technical debates with sound judgment
Mentor engineers through code review, pairing, and technical guidance
Flag people or delivery risks to the Engineering Manager, while staying focused on technical leadership yourself
Bring E-commerce & Logistics Domain Expertise
Apply strong knowledge of order-to-fulfillment flows to guide design decisions and catch edge cases early (backorders, split shipments, peak-volume spikes)
Guide the team on tradeoffs specific to multi-tenant clients with different fulfillment rules
Raise the Bar on Quality & Reliability
Set and enforce standards for testing, observability, and reliability within your workstream
Proactively identify and drive down technical debt as the platform scales
Ensure your workstream's services are well-documented and easy for others to build on
Collaborate Across the Team
Work closely with Staff engineers, product, and operations stakeholders to clarify requirements and priorities
Represent your workstream in cross-team architecture discussions
Communicate technical tradeoffs and risks clearly to both engineers and stakeholders
Experience & Key Skills
Experience
6–8+ years of experience building and shipping production backend systems
Experience informally or formally leading the technical direction of a team or workstream (design reviews, mentorship, setting standards)
Experience with e-commerce order management, inventory, warehouse, or logistics systems is a strong plus
Comfortable working in a fast-moving, still-being-defined 0-to-1 environment
Technical Skills
Strong fundamentals in backend engineering: APIs, data modeling, databases, and distributed systems
Experience with cloud platforms (AWS preferred) and cloud-native service design
Familiarity with event-driven architectures (queues, streams, async processing)
Strong testing, debugging, and production-support practices
Technical Leadership
Ability to set technical direction and make sound judgment calls without direct authority
Strong code review and mentorship instincts
Comfort representing a workstream in broader architecture discussions
Domain & AI Exposure (Nice to Have)
Exposure to EDI standards or 3PL/WMS integration patterns
Experience integrating ML model outputs (forecasts, predictions, anomaly scores) into application logic
Interest in growing domain expertise in ecommerce logistics and fulfillment
Collaboration & Communication
Ability to influence and align engineers without formal authority over them
Clear written and verbal communication, especially in async, distributed team settings
Comfort balancing hands-on technical work with guiding others
