Principal Engineer (m/f/d)

The future looks like you

With over 1,300 stores in 17 European countries and more than 25,000 employees, C&A is one of Europe’s leading fashion retailers. Every day, C&A welcomes millions of visitors to its stores in Europe and to its online shop. C&A offers quality and long-lasting fashion at affordable prices for the many. We are building on more than 180 years of experience in the fashion industry and continuously modernize the company to become an omnichannel fashion retailer.

At C&A we are driven by our values and we believe that affordable and high-quality fashion is not contradictory to caring for people & the planet, we are always forward thinking and acting to develop our business and innovate the industry. This is your chance to join the C&A team as Principal Engineer!

At C&A, Principal Engineers are hands-on technical leaders and system thinkers who solve our most complex problems and drive our technology strategy. As our most senior individual contributors, Principal Engineers define the architecture, engineering practices, and technical direction that power C&A’s transformation to a modern, high-velocity platform ecosystem. You will work across domains (Consumer, Merchandising, Supply Chain, Data) to build scalable, reliable, event-driven systems, and AI-powered capabilities, enabling teams to deliver business value faster. This role replaces traditional architecture layers with a small, high-impact group of engineers who are embedded in teams, close to the code, and accountable for real outcomes.

Your responsibilities

• Serve as a technical leader on the most complex, cross-domain initiatives
• Define and drive system architecture and engineering standards across C&A
• Design and build large-scale, distributed, event-driven systems
• Design and implement AI agent workflows and intelligent systems, including orchestration, tool usage, and evaluation patterns
• Establish best practices for AI-enabled development (agent design, guardrails, observability, prompt/version management)
• Ensure systems meet reliability, scalability, security, and cost requirements
• Lead cross-domain design decisions and define the Architecture Design Framework(RFCs, ADRs etc)
• Influence multiple teams by coaching engineers and raising the engineering bar
• Establish and evolve best practices (DevOps, SRE, observability, data platforms, AI)
• Partner with product and business teams to align technology with outcomes

What you bring

• 12+ years of hands-on software engineering experience
• Experience building and operating large-scale distributed systems
• Strong expertise in system design, scalability, and cloud-native architectures
• Experience designing or implementing AI/ML systems or AI agent workflows
• Proven ability to lead and influence multiple engineering teams
• Experience with event-driven architectures (e.g., Kafka)
• Experience building AI agents, copilots, or workflow automation systems
• Knowledge of data platforms, SAP ecosystems, or retail/supply chain systems
• Experience driving architecture and organizational transformation
• Strong understanding of Domain-Driven Design and platform engineering

Leadership Expectations

• A builder (hands-on, close to the code)
• A technical leader (sets direction and standards, coaches engineers)
• A multiplier (raises the bar across teams)
• A pragmatic decision-maker (balances speed, quality, and cost)

What we offer

This is an opportunity for you to join us on a truly exciting transformation journey, where you’ll be able to leave footprints that last and contribute significantly to our vision. As well as knowing that you played a key part in the evolution of one of Europe’s most recognizable retail brands, you will also enjoy:

• Countless learning and development opportunities via our C&A academy
• Access to a Partner Discount Scheme
• An employee discount of 20% in C&A stores
• 30 days' vacation
• Corporate pension scheme
• Mental health and wellness program
• An exciting job in an international and inspirational working environment
• A positive working atmosphere and a talented team with an open feedback culture