Retail Application Lead | Long Contract | San Ramon, CA [Regular 5 days Onsite]
Any valid visa is fine.
"Overview
We’re seeking an experienced Lead Engineer to design, build, and deliver core Retail Store systems that power Alo’s in-store and omnichannel experiences.
This role will be hands-on and technical, owning the design and delivery of store-facing applications including POS, OMNI order fulfillment by stores, and inventory receiving.
International store expansion will be a key responsibility, alongside ongoing enhancements and reliability of domestic and global store systems.
Work closely with Product, Retail Operations, ERP, and external partners to deliver scalable, reliable, and pragmatic solutions for real-world store environments.
Requires deep technical expertise, strong system design skills, and ownership mindset for store-critical platforms.
Responsibilities
Lead the technical design and implementation of store systems including POS, OMNI fulfillment (ship-from-store, BOPIS, cancellations, returns), and inventory receiving.
Act as a hands-on technical lead, setting architecture, coding standards, and best practices across the team.
Translate business and operational requirements into scalable, resilient, and maintainable technical solutions.
Contribute directly to development using Java, Python, NodeJS, and React across backend and frontend systems.
Design and build integrations with Shopify, ERP, OMS, loyalty platforms, and third-party vendors.
Support international store expansion by deep diving into localization, regional compliance, taxation, and operational requirements for new countries.
Ensure systems work effectively in physical retail environments, including POS hardware, peripherals, and unreliable network conditions.
Collaborate closely with store managers and store teams to understand operational pain points and deliver pragmatic, easy-to-adopt solutions.
Partner with Retail Operations and Product on rollout planning, training support, and adoption of new store-facing features.
Design and operate event-driven and distributed systems using Kafka, ensuring idempotency, retries, and eventual consistency.
Own service reliability for store systems by defining SLOs, improving error rates, and reducing MTTR.
Build and maintain monitoring, alerting, and observability using tools such as Splunk and New Relic.
Participate in on-call rotations, incident response, root-cause analysis, and post-incident improvements.
Plan and execute for peak retail events (promotions, holidays, store launches) and support change discipline during critical windows.
Drive best practices for testing, CI/CD, release management, and infrastructure-as-code.
Ensure data accuracy, auditability, and reconciliation across inventory, order, and financial systems.
Maintain strong security, access controls, and compliance standards for systems used in physically accessible store environments.
Mentor junior engineers through technical guidance, code reviews, and design discussions.
Qualifications
7+ years of software engineering experience, with experience leading technical design and delivery for complex systems.
Strong domain experience in Retail systems, store operations, and omnichannel commerce.
Experience delivering store-facing systems such as POS, inventory receiving, and order fulfillment.
Proficiency in Java, Python, and NodeJS; experience building backend services using Spring.
Experience with frontend development using React.
Hands-on experience integrating with Shopify and other retail platforms.
Strong experience with relational and NoSQL databases including Oracle DB, MySQL, and DynamoDB.
Experience designing and operating event-driven architectures using Kafka.
Strong understanding of distributed systems concepts including retries, idempotency, eventual consistency, and transactional patterns.
Experience with monitoring, logging, and alerting using tools such as Splunk and New Relic.
Experience owning production reliability, incident response, and operational metrics.
Proficiency with build and configuration tools such as Maven, Ant, and YAML.
Experience with source control and collaboration using GitHub.
Hands-on experience with containerization and orchestration using Docker and Kubernetes.
Experience deploying and operating systems in AWS, including SAM and Terraform.
Understanding of payment processing, settlement, taxation, and country-specific compliance considerations.
Experience with omnichannel retail workflows including store fulfillment, ship-from-store, BOPIS, split shipments, cancellations, and returns.
Strong ownership mindset with accountability for technical quality and business outcomes.
Data-driven problem solver with pragmatic engineering judgment.
Excellent cross-functional collaboration and communication skills.
Comfortable operating in fast-paced, imperfect retail environments where store impact is critical."