About the Role

We are looking for an experienced Head of Engineering (Program Manager Engineering) who will take full functional responsibility for all product-oriented Engineering teams across our locations in Romania and Germany

You will drive the technical direction of product development, lead the engineering delivery, shape the product architecture and guide how teams build software. You own the functional leadership for all Engineers working in product and service teams.

The role operates within a dual-leadership model:

• Program Manager Engineering (PM) → functional leadership for product Engineers
• Unit Lead (BL) → disciplinary leadership (people, performance, culture)

A central part of this role is the close collaboration with our Program Manager Platform (PM Platform). The PM Platform owns the engineering platform, including CI/CD, test automation, platform components and the Enterprise Architecture.

Clear distinction:

• All Platform Engineers report functionally to the PM Platform.
• All product Engineers report functionally to the Head of Engineering (PM Engineering).

Both roles jointly shape technical standards and architectural direction, but:

• PM Platform is in the lead for enterprise-wide architecture and platform standards
• PM Engineering is in the lead for product architecture and engineering delivery

Your Responsibilities

Functional Leadership for Product Engineering

• Functional leadership for all Engineers building products and services
• Define the technical direction for product development
• Drive engineering delivery together with Delivery Managers and Tech Leads
• Ensure modern engineering practices (Agile, DevOps, clean code, automation)

Ownership of Product Architecture

• Lead product and service architecture decisions
• Ensure alignment with enterprise-level architectural principles defined by PM Platform
• Closely collaborate with PM Platform on major technical and architectural initiatives

Collaboration with the Program Manager Platform

• Jointly define and evolve engineering standards and technical guidelines

PM Engineering leads on:

• Technical delivery in product teams
• Product-level architecture
• Engineering methodologies and ways of working

PM Platform leads on:

• Enterprise Architecture
• Architecture principles & guardrails
• CI/CD tooling and strategy
• Test automation frameworks
• Development platform and engineering environments

Cross-location Collaboration

• Build a unified engineering culture across Romania and Germany
• Align engineering processes, tools, and development standards
• Ensure transparent communication with all relevant technical and business stakeholders

Collaboration within the BL/PM Leadership Model

• Operate as a functional counterpart to the Unit Lead (BL), Engineering
• PM Engineering focuses on technical decisions, priorities and functional leadership
• BL focuses on people leadership, capacity, performance and culture
• Jointly ensure continuous improvement, organisational maturity and delivery excellence

Engineering Excellence

• Drive high engineering quality, technical consistency and professional engineering practices
• Build and support communities of practice and knowledge-sharing structures
• Support engineers in their functional and technical development

Your Profile

Professional Requirements

• Strong experience in senior engineering or architecture leadership roles
• Deep understanding of modern software development and product-centric architecture
• Proven ability to guide technical delivery and manage complex engineering initiatives
• Ideally experience collaborating with platform, architecture or infrastructure teams
• Strong knowledge of DevOps practices, automated pipelines and cloud technologies

Personal Competencies

• Strong functional leadership skills without disciplinary authority
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management abilities
• Ability to drive and explain technical decisions clearly and consistently
• Structured, analytical and solution-oriented working style
• Strong collaboration skills in environments with multiple technical leadership roles

Language Requirements

• English: excellent (mandatory)
• German: beneficial, but not mandatory

Our commitment to you

• An established business with the soul of a Startup
• A digital workplace experience with flexible working hours
• Agile & lean organization: Optimized work processes to eliminate waste and horizontal hierarchy
• Global mobility and international rotation
• Competitive salary, private health insurance, and comprehensive benefits
• A bonus system based on company and individual contributions
• Structured professional development with both soft and technical training programs, workshop opportunities, and language learning support

About adesso Romania

adesso is providing IT delivery, consultancy and software solutions with international teams. The new subsidiary, adesso Romania, is based in Bucharest. It is to begin supporting adesso’s international delivery network (www.adesso-smartshore.com) in staffing and logistical terms effective immediately.

Around 1000 of the more than 12000 employees in the adesso Group already work for customers in Europe at adesso’s SmartShore locations in Turkey, Bulgaria and Spain. Main technology stack is Java, .NET, FE, Mobile App Development, MS Power Platform, and DevOps.

The IT experts work on digitalization projects as part of international project teams. Some of their work is done on-premises at customer locations – especially in the German-speaking countries – but some are also performed through virtual collaboration from adesso’s individual SmartShore offices in Istanbul, Sofia, Barcelona, Madrid, and Jerez.

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