Director, Software Engineering, Engineering Excellence & Dev Tooling - ITC

Become a Part of the NIKE, Inc. Team

NIKE, Inc. does more than outfit the world’s best athletes. It’s a place where passionate individuals come together to create the future of sport. We are unapologetic about who we are and what we’re after—bringing innovation and inspiration to every athlete* in the world. We look for athletes who can push boundaries, elevate our potential and continue leading us to greatness. The next tastemakers, playmakers, risk takers and glue players. Are you game?

This role reports into the Engineering Excellence and DevEx Organization and connects across all levels and functions of Global Technology at Nike to deliver engineering excellence solutions and platforms at scale. It is central to accelerating Nike's strategy to advance and evolve its technology landscape, delivering cost savings, better business agility, and faster time-to-market. The Director will partner closely with teams supporting foundational technologies across Nike's public cloud infrastructure, digital, retail, wholesale, and data centers globally.

This role leads the Engineering Excellence & Developer Experience organization — a team with a clear mandate: elevate how Nike engineers work, unify the developer tools ecosystem into a cohesive set of core platforms, and accelerate the adoption of AI-native development practices across Global Technology.
The Director will directly manage multiple engineering squads based in India, operating as part of a globally integrated team with counterparts in Beaverton, Oregon. This role partners with engineering leaders, product managers, and program managers enterprise-wide to define technical strategy, drive platform consolidation, and raise the engineering bar across Nike's global organization.

Education & Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Information Systems, or a related field, or any equivalent combination of professional experience, education, and training
• At least 15+ years of overall technology leadership experience, including at least 5 years in a people management role building and leading effective, innovative teams through complex transformations — IC and management experience may overlap

• At least 7 years developing highly available, highly scalable platforms using languages and technologies including but not limited to Java, Node.js, Golang, React, or JavaScript
• At least 7 years of professional experience with Cloud Native technologies on platforms like AWS or other major cloud providers; proven experience addressing cloud challenges around clustering, end-to-end service design, resiliency, reliability, streaming, high availability / disaster recovery (HA/DR), and complex distributed systems
• At least 4 years of professional experience with container runtimes such as Kubernetes, deployment tools like Terraform, and configuration management solutions like Ansible
• At least 2 years leading AI-augmented engineering teams, implementing AI-native development practices, and driving developer productivity through AI tooling
• Hands-on familiarity with agent-based development workflows and MCP (Model Context Protocol) ecosystems for enterprise software delivery

• Deep foundational knowledge of software engineering practices, particularly distributed systems and cloud native architectures
• Experience with developer tools ecosystem consolidation, including CI/CD platforms (GitHub Actions, Jenkins), artifact management (Artifactory, GitHub Packages), observability tools (Grafana, Databricks), and developer portals (Backstage)
• Understanding of AI-native development workflows, agent-led software delivery, and human-supervised automation patterns including AI-assisted rapid prototyping methodologies

• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, equally comfortable presenting to executives and working directly with engineering teams
• High emotional intelligence with the ability to bring diverse groups together to tackle common goals while removing blockers decisively
• Passionate about delivery, with the ability to provide technical direction while remaining a hands-on contributing member of the team
• Long-term, holistic thinker who takes ownership of ambiguous problems and drives results with a strong emphasis on team productivity
• Proven ability to engage and build trust with engineering communities, including navigating high-friction or resistant stakeholders, driving platform adoption through influence rather than mandate, and treating internal engineers as customers whose experience and feedback shape the work

• Proven experience defining and implementing engineering productivity metrics, developer experience improvements, and measurable engineering outcomes that raise the technical bar across a global engineering organization

WHAT YOU’LL WORK ON:
You will lead engineering teams responsible for building and evolving Nike’s Engineering excellence and Dev Tooling strategy, engineering excellence, and developer Experience and drive adoption of AI-SDLC platform in india.

Your responsibility Includes: 

• Lead, mentor, and manage multiple engineering squads to deliver software that aligns to multi-year platform roadmaps, Global Technology standards, and modern industry trends
• Drive the evolution of Nike's developer tools ecosystem into a cohesive set of core unified platforms: GitHub (CICD, Packages, Source Control), Nike AI SDLC Platform (AI Models, SDLC workflows, MCP Ecosystem, Governance), leverage Databricks (Metrics, Analytics, Automated Reporting), and build Backstage (Developer Portal, Docs, UI Plugins)

• Lead multiple squads to evaluate, analyze, and advance Nike's technology landscape, engaging and partnering with the teams who build and maintain Nike's production systems and services
• Define and lead the technical strategy, design, and engineering implementation of efficient, reusable, secure, and resilient technology solutions that modernize and evolve Nike's platforms in direct support of Nike's multi-year engineering excellence strategy

• Drive Nike's technical maturity by establishing AI-native standards, best practices, and developer productivity improvements that set the benchmark for engineering culture across a global organization
• Champion the adoption of AI-native SDLC practices where agents perform heavy lifting across the software delivery lifecycle while humans provide supervision at key checkpoints, moving from AI-assisted to agent-led development workflows

• Foster cross-team collaboration across multiple engineering squads by growing and supporting communities of practice (COPs) for specialized multidisciplinary technical areas, including Observability, API, Data, AI/ML, Kubernetes, DevOps, Cloud, Pipeline, and Disaster Recovery
• Lead coordination across geo-distributed teams and time zones to ensure consistent engineering practices and knowledge sharing across Nike's global technology organization
• Establish and maintain traceability models connecting business requirements and outcomes to GitHub commits, deployments, and production signals for measurable engineering results

NIKE, Inc. is a growth company that looks for team members to grow with it. Nike offers a generous total rewards package, casual work environment, a diverse and inclusive culture, and an electric atmosphere for professional development. No matter the location, or the role, every Nike employee shares one galvanizing mission: To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete* in the world.

NIKE, Inc. is an equal opportunity employer. Qualified applicants will receive consideration without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, veteran status, or disability.