[Interim] Engineering Manager

Job Title: Engineering Manager [Interim]

Location: Amsterdam, on site

Engagement: Full-time, ASAP until end of the year

Contract duration: End of the year (possible extension to permanent contract)

Start date: ASAP 

About the Client

Our client is an international fashion retailer strengthening engineering leadership to scale reliable, customer-centric technology across online and in-store channels.

Role Overview

As Interim Engineering Manager, you will provide experienced leadership across backend and frontend engineering teams. The role is purely managerial and strategic (no hands-on coding) and focused on planning, delivery, communication, and execution under pressure.

You will act as the bridge between engineering, product, and customer-facing stakeholders, ensuring technology initiatives directly support onboarding, in-store experiences, and overall customer journey improvements.

This role requires strong technical credibility, as you will operate in close proximity to senior digital leadership with deep technical backgrounds.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead and coordinate backend and frontend engineering teams to deliver agreed priorities; own planning, design alignment, delivery cadence, and dependency management

• Ensure engineering output aligns with business priorities and customer experience goals; support onboarding of new initiatives, teams, and customer-facing capabilities

• Act as the primary engineering communication point for product, CX, and business stakeholders; maintain transparency on timelines, trade-offs, and delivery impact

• Provide technical oversight and direction without hands-on development; partner closely with architects, product owners, and tech leads on roadmap alignment

• Identify risks, bottlenecks, and delivery issues early; escalate pragmatically to protect outcomes

• Create clarity and calm in high-pressure, fast-moving environments

Required Experience & Profile

• Proven experience as an Engineering Manager (or similar) in a modern software environment

• Strong understanding of both backend and frontend systems and delivery challenges

• Comfortable operating at senior level with technically strong stakeholders

• Excellent communication skills — able to translate technical topics to business language

• Experience stabilising teams, onboarding workstreams, and driving execution quickly

• Pragmatic, delivery-focused, and comfortable making decisions with incomplete context

• No expectation of hands-on coding, but strong technical judgment is essential