What are the responsibilities and job description for the Head of Engineering & Platform Innovation position at Talentfoot Executive Search?
Location: Pittsburgh, PA (on-site)
Industry: B2B E-Commerce
Company Overview
Our client is transforming a long-established industrial sector through a digital-first, customer-centric approach. For more than two decades, this privately held B2B e-commerce leader has pioneered modern online buying experiences in a market traditionally slow to adopt technology. Their entrepreneurial, highly autonomous culture empowers teams to innovate, challenge convention, and build solutions that redefine what’s possible in their industry.
Following significant growth and a generational leadership transition, the organization is investing heavily in modern platform capabilities to support its next era of scale. As part of this evolution, they are hiring a Head of Engineering & Platform Innovation to architect the future and elevate their competitive advantage.
Position Overview
This is a rare opportunity to build something foundational. As the Head of Engineering & Platform Innovation, you will lead a full-scale engineering rebuild, owning the architecture, team creation, and modernization of a next-generation commerce platform from the ground up.
This role offers exceptional visibility and influence: you’ll partner directly with executive leadership, reshape the company’s technology strategy, and drive innovation that materially impacts customer experience, operational efficiency, and long-term market differentiation.
Ideal for a hands-on, forward-thinking engineering leader, this position offers:
Position Qualifications
About Talentfoot
Talentfoot Executive Search specializes in future-proofing organizations by securing forward-thinking leaders across sales, marketing, eCommerce, product, data, operations, finance, and technology with a track record of accelerating growth, innovation, and profitability. Since 2010, we’ve partnered with more than 2,500 companies and lead the industry with a 98% client success rate. Learn more at Talentfoot.com.
Industry: B2B E-Commerce
Company Overview
Our client is transforming a long-established industrial sector through a digital-first, customer-centric approach. For more than two decades, this privately held B2B e-commerce leader has pioneered modern online buying experiences in a market traditionally slow to adopt technology. Their entrepreneurial, highly autonomous culture empowers teams to innovate, challenge convention, and build solutions that redefine what’s possible in their industry.
Following significant growth and a generational leadership transition, the organization is investing heavily in modern platform capabilities to support its next era of scale. As part of this evolution, they are hiring a Head of Engineering & Platform Innovation to architect the future and elevate their competitive advantage.
Position Overview
This is a rare opportunity to build something foundational. As the Head of Engineering & Platform Innovation, you will lead a full-scale engineering rebuild, owning the architecture, team creation, and modernization of a next-generation commerce platform from the ground up.
This role offers exceptional visibility and influence: you’ll partner directly with executive leadership, reshape the company’s technology strategy, and drive innovation that materially impacts customer experience, operational efficiency, and long-term market differentiation.
Ideal for a hands-on, forward-thinking engineering leader, this position offers:
- A clean slate: the chance to re-architect the platform and define engineering best practices.
- High autonomy: an environment where best ideas win and leaders are trusted to execute.
- Massive impact: the ability to build a world-class engineering organization and technology foundation that fuels the company’s next decade of growth.
- Define the long-term technology vision and translate business priorities into a clear engineering roadmap.
- Architect a next-generation commerce platform, modernizing legacy systems into a scalable, modular, API-first foundation.
- Drive build-versus-buy decisions that balance speed, cost, technical debt, and long-term value.
- Establish engineering standards, architectural principles, and technology choices that ensure reliability, performance, and future innovation.
- Identify opportunities to incorporate automation and AI/ML for differentiated customer and operational value.
- Build an in-house engineering organization by defining structure, roles, and a hiring plan.
- Recruit, mentor, and lead a high-performing team across full-stack, platform, DevOps/SRE, and data/ML.
- Partner with executive leadership to align technology strategy with commercial and operational goals.
- Translate complex engineering concepts into clear business implications for non-technical stakeholders.
- Collaborate across product, operations, finance, marketing, and vendor relations to drive integrated platform capabilities.
- Represent engineering at the leadership table, shaping planning, prioritization, and resource discussions.
Position Qualifications
- A strong track record leading engineering transformation, platform modernization, or large-scale rebuild initiatives.
- 10 years of progressive engineering leadership experience.
- Hands-on expertise with modern architectures, cloud environments (AWS/Azure/GCP), APIs, and data-driven platforms.
- Demonstrated success building or scaling engineering teams across multiple disciplines.
- Familiarity with CI/CD, automated testing, infrastructure-as-code, DevOps/SRE, and observability frameworks.
- Ability to connect technical decisions to business outcomes, operational efficiency, and revenue growth.
- Exceptional communication skills with experience influencing executive stakeholders and leading through change.
- Experience in B2B e-commerce, marketplace environments, or companies with complex product data.
- Exposure to AI/ML integration, automation, or real-time analytics in production settings.
- Passion for building from scratch and thriving in highly autonomous, entrepreneurial environments.
About Talentfoot
Talentfoot Executive Search specializes in future-proofing organizations by securing forward-thinking leaders across sales, marketing, eCommerce, product, data, operations, finance, and technology with a track record of accelerating growth, innovation, and profitability. Since 2010, we’ve partnered with more than 2,500 companies and lead the industry with a 98% client success rate. Learn more at Talentfoot.com.