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Sr. Leader, Engineering Excellence
full-timeSan Jose$217k - $290k

Summary

Location

San Jose

Salary

$217k - $290k

Type

full-time

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About this role

At eBay, we're more than a global ecommerce leader — we’re changing the way the world shops and sells. Our platform empowers millions of buyers and sellers in more than 190 markets around the world. We’re committed to pushing boundaries and leaving our mark as we reinvent the future of ecommerce for enthusiasts.

Our customers are our compass, authenticity thrives, bold ideas are welcome, and everyone can bring their unique selves to work — every day. We're in this together, sustaining the future of our customers, our company, and our planet.

Join a team of passionate thinkers, innovators, and dreamers — and help us connect people and build communities to create economic opportunity for all.

We are the Core Buyer and Community Engineering Org that strives to delight the diverse eBay customer base across the world. Our organization owns all parts of the buyer journey at eBay such as eBayLive, ViewItem/Transaction, Home Page, Discovery, Payments, Protection, Value Added Service, Community, etc. We are a data driven agile organization. We ship often with high quality, get immediate user feedback and use experimentation to make decisions. We constantly push for engineering excellence and the best engineering culture.

We are seeking a Senior Member of Technical Staff Engineer to own and elevate developer experience, engineering excellence, and tech velocity across our organization. This role blends deep technical leadership (architecture, systems reliability, tooling) with program leadership (cross-org governance, metrics, and coaching). You will lead a group of talented TPMs and engineers, work closely with domain leaders to drive standards, platforms, and practices that reduce developer friction, improve reliability, and accelerate time-to-value while partnering closely with Platform/Infra/SRE teams. 

Key responsibilities

Developer Ergonomics

  • Define and lead a developer experience strategy: tooling, local dev flows, build/test pipelines, dev environments, and documentation.

  • Identify friction via data, shadowing, and surveys; prioritize and deliver cross-org level  improvements. Establish golden paths and paved road standards; maintain self-serve portals and onboarding kits.

Essential Engineering (EE)

  • Run governance: intake, prioritization, reporting, and quarterly reviews tied to OKRs; mentor the TPM supporting EE.

Tech Velocity

  • Drive company defined/mandated velocity and quality KPIs (lead time, deployment frequency, change fail rate, MTTR, bug leakage, say/do ratio).

  • Working with domain teams to optimize CI/CD, test strategy, and release management.

Root Cause Analysis (RCA)

  • Institutionalize blameless postmortems with standard templates, severity taxonomy, and action-item tracking.

  • Build a shared knowledge base of incidents, patterns, and fixes; drive cross-team learnings into standards and tooling.

  • Ensure corrective and preventive actions (CAPA) are prioritized and completed; report closure rates and recurrence reduction.

Definition of Done (DoD), Logging, and Alerting

  • Codify DoD for all services/components: tests, docs, security checks, logging, metrics, tracing, alerts, runbooks, and rollback plans.

Resiliency and High Availability

  • Define HA and resiliency standards (SLO/SLA targets, error budgets, capacity, retries, timeouts, circuit breakers, backpressure).

  • Work with each domain to drive resilience engineering: chaos tests, disaster recovery drills, multi-zone/region strategies, and dependency risk management.

Jellyfish & Jira Hygiene

  • Own hygiene standards for planning tools: issue states, story sizing, epics, labels, and linkage to OKRs and deployments.

  • Automate integrity checks and dashboards; coach teams to maintain consistent workflows and data quality.

Developer Experience (Dx) Survey to Action

  • Run periodic Dx surveys; analyze results and convert findings into a prioritized roadmap with owners and timelines.

  • Publish progress transparently; measure impact with before/after metrics and developer feedback.

Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) Partnership

  • Co-own operational excellence goals with SRE: best-in-class Time to Detect (TTD) and Time to Restore (TTR), and SLA/SLO adherence.

  • Align on alerting thresholds, on-call practices, runbooks, escalation paths, and readiness checklists for launches.

Leadership and influence

  • Operate as a cross-org technical leader: set standards, secure buy-in, and hold teams accountable through influence.

  • Act as the technical bridge between Domain and Platform/Infra/SRE teams to fulfill each others’ needs and demands. 

  • Mentor engineers and managers; build capability in reliability, observability, and delivery excellence.

  • Communicate clearly to executives and partners: narratives, dashboards, and decision briefs that tie work to business outcomes.

Qualifications

  • 10+ years in software engineering with 3+ years in senior staff/principal roles; prior management or tech lead experience.

  • Expertise in CI/CD, testing strategies, observability (logs, metrics, traces), incident management, and resilience patterns.

  • Strong data-driven mindset; proficiency with engineering analytics and workflow tools (e.g., Jira, Jellyfish, DORA metrics).

  • Proven track record driving cross-functional programs and elevating developer experience at scale.

  • Excellent communication and facilitation skills; adept at blameless culture and standards adoption.

The base pay range for this position is expected in the range below:

$217,600 - $290,500

Base pay offered may vary depending on multiple individualized factors, including location, skills, and experience. The total compensation package for this position may also include other elements, including a target bonus and restricted stock units (as applicable) in addition to a full range of medical, financial, and/or other benefits (including 401(k) eligibility and various paid time off benefits, such as PTO and parental leave). Details of participation in these benefit plans will be provided if an employee receives an offer of employment.

If hired, employees will be in an “at-will position” and the Company reserves the right to modify base salary (as well as any other discretionary payment or compensation program) at any time, including for reasons related to individual performance, Company or individual department/team performance, and market factors.

Please see the Talent Privacy Notice for information regarding how eBay handles your personal data collected when you use the eBay Careers website or apply for a job with eBay.

eBay is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran status, and disability, or other legally protected status. If you have a need that requires accommodation, please contact us at [email protected]. We will make every effort to respond to your request for accommodation as soon as possible. View our accessibility statement to learn more about eBay's commitment to ensuring digital accessibility for people with disabilities. It is unlawful in Massachusetts to require or administer a lie detector test as a condition of employment or continued employment. An employer who violates this law shall be subject to criminal penalties and civil liability.

 

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Other facts

Tech stack
Software Engineering,Technical Leadership,CI/CD,Testing Strategies,Observability,Incident Management,Resilience Patterns,Data-Driven Mindset,Engineering Analytics,Workflow Tools,Cross-Functional Programs,Developer Experience,Communication Skills,Mentoring,Governance,Agile Methodologies

About eBay

At eBay, we create pathways to connect millions of sellers and buyers in more than 190 markets around the world. Our technology empowers our customers, providing everyone the opportunity to grow and thrive — no matter who they are or where they are in the world. And the ripple effect of our work creates waves of change for our customers, our company, our communities and our planet.

Team size: 10,001+ employees
LinkedIn: Visit
Industry: Technology, Information and Internet

What you'll do

  • The role involves defining and leading a developer experience strategy, improving engineering excellence, and driving tech velocity across the organization. Additionally, it includes mentoring teams and ensuring adherence to operational excellence goals.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What does eBay pay for a Sr. Leader, Engineering Excellence?

eBay offers a competitive compensation package for the Sr. Leader, Engineering Excellence role. The salary range is USD 218k - 291k per year. Apply through Clera to learn more about the full compensation details.

What does a Sr. Leader, Engineering Excellence do at eBay?

As a Sr. Leader, Engineering Excellence at eBay, you will: the role involves defining and leading a developer experience strategy, improving engineering excellence, and driving tech velocity across the organization. Additionally, it includes mentoring teams and ensuring adherence to operational excellence goals..

Why join eBay as a Sr. Leader, Engineering Excellence?

eBay is a leading Technology, Information and Internet company. The Sr. Leader, Engineering Excellence role offers competitive compensation.

Is the Sr. Leader, Engineering Excellence position at eBay remote?

The Sr. Leader, Engineering Excellence position at eBay is based in San Jose, California, United States. Contact the company through Clera for specific work arrangement details.

How do I apply for the Sr. Leader, Engineering Excellence position at eBay?

You can apply for the Sr. Leader, Engineering Excellence position at eBay directly through Clera. Click the "Apply Now" button above to start your application. Clera's AI-powered platform will help match your profile with this opportunity and guide you through the application process. You can also learn more about eBay on their website.