Engineer Manager, Returns

The Role & The Product

At parcelLab, we help brands improve what happens after checkout: delivery updates, tracking, returns, customer communication, and the operational work behind all of it. We’re looking for an Engineering Manager to lead our Returns (v2) Platform team.

This is not a legacy maintenance role. Our Returns Portal is a recently rebuilt product area with deep Shopify integration, a native Shopify app, advanced exchange logic, customer profiles, fraud-prevention capabilities, and highly configurable workflows for enterprise customers. It is an AI-native product with AI embedded directly into the returns and back-office experience, including agent-driven customisation and automation logic.

Returns sound simple from the outside, but the technical reality is highly complex. The platform must handle intricate eligibility rules, routing logic, carrier integrations, and endless edge cases while remaining incredibly reliable in production.

As the Engineering Manager, you will lead the engineering team responsible for this platform, working across backend services, APIs, workflows, and AI-assisted capabilities. You do not need to be on the critical path for daily implementation, but you must stay close enough to the system to review designs, spot risks early, and maintain technical credibility with a team of experienced engineers. You’ll bring clarity to complex architectural decisions, collaborate closely with cross-functional peers (Product, Design, Infrastructure, and Commercial teams), and create the space for senior engineers to do their best work.

What you’ll do

• Lead, coach, and develop a high-performing team of experienced engineers, fostering a culture of ownership and continuous improvement.

• Partner with Product and Go-To-Market teams to shape the Returns Platform roadmap and turn ambiguity into clear execution plans.

• Guide technical decisions across backend services, APIs, distributed systems, and complex product capabilities like rules engines and Shopify integrations.

• Help the team make practical trade-offs around delivery speed, reliability, technical debt, extensibility, and long-term platform health.

• Own the talent lifecycle for your team, including hiring, onboarding, performance management, and career growth paths.

• Champion modern engineering tools, helping the team integrate AI into their development workflows thoughtfully without lowering the bar for quality.

What we’re looking for (Non-Negotiables)

• Proven leadership track record: Experience leading and coaching senior engineers through complex product and architecture decisions in a SaaS, platform, or B2B environment.

• Core Technical Credibility (Python): A strong technical background in backend engineering, distributed systems, and scalable APIs. Because our V2 platform relies heavily on Python, you must have hands-on experience with Python and its ecosystem (e.g., Django) to effectively review designs, challenge technical assumptions, and guide the team.

• Enterprise Product Judgment: Comfort building highly configurable enterprise products without turning the platform into bespoke, customer-by-customer software.

• Cross-functional Collaboration: Ability to build strong relationships and communicate clearly with both deeply technical engineers and non-technical commercial stakeholders.

• Pragmatic Delivery Focus: Strong judgment around sequencing, technical debt, and maintainability—you aren't satisfied just because "the tickets are done."

Bonus points (Nice-to-Haves)

• Domain Expertise: Experience in e-commerce, logistics, returns, fulfilment, post-purchase, or supply chain platforms.

• Ecosystem Experience: Deep familiarity with Shopify, commerce platforms, carrier integrations, or merchant tooling.

• Advanced Workflows: Experience with complex exchange flows, customer profiles, fraud prevention, rules engines, or event-driven architecture.

• Tech Stack Extras: Experience with PostgreSQL, AWS, Terraform, or modern observability tooling.

• AI & Automation: Experience building AI-assisted product capabilities, internal tools, or agent-driven workflows.

• Distributed Teams: Experience leading remote or internationally distributed teams.

This role is a good fit if

• You enjoy leading strong engineers without needing to micro-manage or control every detail.

• You thrive in product areas where the complexity is real: edge cases, heavy integrations, and tight operational constraints.

• You are genuinely interested in how AI can become part of the core product architecture and daily engineering workflow.

• You can challenge a roadmap constructively, asking the sharp questions that help a team navigate trade-offs between speed and quality.

Why join parcelLab

parcelLab connects tracking, delivery, returns, and customer engagement in one post-purchase platform. We help brands reduce friction for their customers and build stronger relationships after checkout.

Our Returns Platform is one of the product areas where a lot is being rebuilt, expanded, and pushed forward. You’ll join at a point where the foundation is new, the product ambition is high, and the technical decisions still matter.

Every day, we:

• Monitor over six million shipments.

• Support customers across 175+ countries.

• Power post-purchase experiences for 1,000+ brands.

• Integrate with 350+ carriers worldwide.

• Work as a global team of 150+ people.

We offer:

• Competitive salary and benefits.

• Flexible remote-first working.

• Career development and mentorship opportunities.

• Mental wellbeing support and coaching.

• Regular company retreats, meet-ups, and off-sites.

• A collaborative international team representing 25+ nationalities.

• A culture that values creativity, experimentation, ownership, and practical execution.

At parcelLab, people bring their own perspectives. We judge qualifications and performance, not age, sex, religion, skin colour, gender identity, family status, or disability.