THE ROLE & THE TEAM
Zalando is on a mission to become the leading pan-European fashion and lifestyle ecosystem. Our tech organizations—such as the Zalando eCommerce Platform—build the high-scale infrastructure, foundational data services, and core systems that power millions of customer and partner interactions daily.
As a Principal Tech Portfolio Manager, you will operate as a strategic partner to our executive tech leadership. You will implement enterprise portfolio management standards, drive transparency into massive technical investments, and help navigate complex trade-offs to ensure our multi-stream engineering efforts directly map to Zalando’s overarching group strategy.
INCLUSIVE BY DESIGN
At Zalando, our vision is to be the leading pan-European ecosystem for fashion and lifestyle e-commerce - one that is inclusive by design. We only assess candidates based on qualifications, merit, and business needs. We welcome applications from people of all gender identities, sexual orientations, personal expressions, racial identities, ethnicities, religious beliefs, and disability statuses. We only want to know why you’re great for this role, so please avoid including your picture, age, and marital status in your CV as well.
We want to provide you with a great candidate experience. Please feel free to inform us of any accommodations you may need, so we can best support and assist you throughout the hiring process.
do.BETTER - our diversity & inclusion strategy: https://jobs.zalando.com/en/our-culture/diversity-and-inclusion
WHAT WE’D LOVE YOU TO DO (AND LOVE DOING)
Run the tech portfolio management system
You will maintain and improve the operating model for managing the Tech portfolio across domains, teams, and investment streams, including intake, prioritization, sequencing, dependencies, capacity planning, portfolio health, risks, leadership reviews, and retrospectives.
Connect strategy, planning, and execution
You will support annual operational planning and ongoing portfolio steering by translating strategic priorities into a clear technology investment portfolio aligned with Zalando’s group strategy, ZMS priorities, commercial needs, platform evolution, and available capacity.
Drive prioritization and trade-off decisions
You will maintain a transparent prioritization framework combining business value, technical complexity, strategic relevance, capacity, risk, dependencies, and timing, enabling leadership to compare investments and make clear trade-off decisions.
Own portfolio transparency, metrics, and executive reporting
You will create dashboards, business review materials, decision papers, and executive narratives that translate complex technical work into business-relevant insights, giving leadership a reliable view of delivery confidence, constraints, risks, investment allocation, and expected outcomes.
Partner across Engineering, Product, Finance, and Business
You will work closely with engineering and product leaders to understand roadmaps, delivery constraints, dependencies, and capacity; with finance and strategy on investment tracking and resource modelling; and with commercial stakeholders to reflect partner, customer, and market needs in planning.
Apply AI acumen to portfolio management and technology planning
You will bring practical AI fluency to the role, helping identify where GenAI, automation, or agentic workflows can improve portfolio processes, planning transparency, decision quality, and execution efficiency. You will also understand how AI-related initiatives differ from traditional tech work in terms of experimentation, risk, capability needs, and scaling requirements.
WE’D LOVE TO MEET YOU IF
You bring 8+ years of experience in technical portfolio management, technical program management, enterprise portfolio management, product operations, strategy & operations, or a related role in a complex technology environment such as e-commerce, marketplaces, SaaS, cloud platforms, infrastructure, retail media, fintech, or large-scale digital products.
You have managed portfolios across multiple engineering teams, product domains, or business units, and have operated directly with senior technology leaders.
You have proven experience with portfolio intake, prioritization, sequencing, dependency tracking, capacity modelling, budget or investment tracking, and portfolio health reporting.
You produce clear, structured senior-leadership materials, including decision papers, portfolio narratives, business cases, executive updates, and steering documents that combine data, judgment, and recommendations.
You operate with high autonomy and strong judgment, turning ambiguous problems into clear structures, mechanisms, stakeholder alignment, and outcomes with limited guidance.
You are comfortable challenging senior stakeholders respectfully when the data or logic does not support the current direction, and helping the organization commit and execute once decisions are made.
You have strong working knowledge of portfolio and delivery tools such as Jira Advanced Roadmaps, Jira Align, ServiceNow SPM, Aha!, Asana, Linear, Productboard, Smartsheet, or similar.
Experience with enterprise portfolio frameworks, agile-at-scale methods, or certifications such as PMI-PfMP, MoP, SAFe, RTE, PgMP, or similar is a plus.
You are confident working with data and metrics, including portfolio views, investment models, capacity models, prioritization scoring, risk indicators, leadership dashboards, and imperfect data sets.
You are fluent in English and communicate with precision, clarity, and confidence in writing and speaking.
OUR OFFER
Zalando provides a range of benefits, here’s an overview of what you can expect. Ask your Talent Acquisition Partner to learn more about what we offer.
Employee shares program
40% off fashion and beauty products sold and shipped by Zalando, 30% off Zalando Lounge, discounts from external partners
2 paid volunteering days a year
Hybrid working model with up to 60% remote per week, actual practice is up to each team to best support their collaboration
Work from abroad for up to 30 working days a year
27 days of vacation a year to start
Relocation assistance available (subject to prior agreement)
Family services, including counseling and support
Health and wellbeing options (including Gympass)
Mental health support and coaching available
