Purpose of the Role
This role drives REI’s Digital Commerce engineering capabilities that power how members and customers discover and connect with the outdoor experiences they love, across mobile, web, API, and cloud‑native platforms. By enabling seamless, reliable experiences across digital and in‑store touchpoints, this person stewards the digital commerce technology portfolio. They ensure platforms are secure, adaptable, scalable, and built for long‑term growth in service of REI’s co‑op mission.
The Director owns the end‑to‑end product and engineering operating model for digital commerce. They translate business and member strategies into clear, executable roadmaps. This includes modernizing platforms, governing technology investments thoughtfully, and delivering measurable value at enterprise scale. Success is defined not only by what is delivered, but by the enduring health of the platforms, the resilience and sustainability of engineering talent, and the lasting impact technology has on REI’s members, employees, and business.
Leading the Way (People, Culture, and Leadership)
- Manage and scale high‑performing, multi‑team digital commerce engineering organizations across mobile, web, APIs, and cloud. Uses a product‑oriented, agile operating model with clear ownership, accountability, and outcomes.
- Build durable technology leadership and engineering excellence, including talent development, succession planning, and a culture. Grounded in modern software practices (CI/CD, reliability engineering, security‑by‑design, and observability) that enables sustainable delivery at enterprise scale.
- Guide change with clarity and inclusivity while modernizing ways of working. Adopts new tools and capabilities (including GenAI), removing cross‑team impediments, and fostering psychologically safe, ethical, and compliant teams.
Planning, Strategy, and Navigation
- Own the digital commerce technology portfolio. This includes consumer‑facing experiences, platform services, and enabling capabilities, ensuring alignment to business and member outcomes.
- Define, evolve, and govern modern digital commerce architectures. This will be across mobile, web, API‑first, and cloud‑native platforms to enable speed, resilience, reuse, and scale.
- Establish and execute multi‑year platform strategies and roadmaps, stabilizing near‑term delivery with long‑term sustainability, technical debt reduction, and platform health.
- Manage platform modernization initiatives with clear accountability for improving reliability, reducing operational risk, and increasing team autonomy and delivery velocity.
- Deploy and operate technology portfolio and investment governance, including intake, prioritization, funding models, and value realization tied to enterprise outcomes.
- Set and enforce enterprise‑grade engineering standards for CI/CD maturity, performance, reliability, security, and observability. Brings transparency into platform health and risks.
- Oversee vendor strategy and partner performance, ensuring accountability, leverage, and alignment with architectural principles and organizational values.
- Partner deeply with product, design, data, infrastructure, security, and store technology managers to deliver integrated, end‑to‑end digital commerce outcomes.
- Give clear, ongoing executive communication on delivery progress, platform performance, tradeoffs, risks, and return on technology investments.
Accountability & Outcomes
- Reliable, scalable, and high‑performing digital commerce platforms serving millions of members and customers.
- Predictable, transparent delivery of prioritized initiatives within a product‑oriented operating model.
- Sustained reduction of material technical debt and operational risk.
- Measurable improvements in engineering productivity, cycle time, quality, and operational stability through disciplined CI/CD and observability practices.
- Healthy, engaged teams with proven leadership pipelines, succession readiness, and talent development outcomes.
- Clear, ongoing executive visibility into technology investments, portfolio tradeoffs, and realized value.
Responsibilities and Qualifications
- 10+ years leading technology delivery for large‑scale consumer or digital commerce platforms.
- Proven experience building and scaling multi‑team engineering organizations using agile or product‑centric operating models.
- Demonstrated ownership of modern digital architectures (mobile, web, APIs, cloud) and sustained platform modernization.
- Exceptional track record partnering with product, design, and business leaders to deliver measurable outcomes.
- Experience operating within complex, distributed enterprise environments with formal governance requirements.
Closing
At REI, we believe the outdoors is for all. We are committed to becoming a fully inclusive, anti-racist, multicultural organization. We know that there's strength in our diversity – that each employee brings unique skills, experiences, and perspectives. Every day you are driving change, fostering a culture of respect, and knowing you're backed by benefits that support your whole life. To work towards this commitment and fulfill our brand promise of inspiring and enabling a life outside for everyone, we seek employees who demonstrate different ways of working, create a sense of belonging, and actively listen and learn.
Pay Transparency
We are committed to practices that promote pay equity and transparency. As required by applicable Pay Transparency laws, REI provides a range of compensation for roles that may be hired in locations under these requirements. Factors that may be used to determine your actual salary may include a wide array of factors, including: your specific skills and experience, geographic location or other relevant factors.
REI offers all regular employees a generous employee discount, access to health benefits, a retirement savings plan and accrued time off. Click here for a detailed overview of benefits plans by employee profile.
Pay Range
$161,300.00 - $274,400.00 per year