Lead Software Engineer, ITC

WHO YOU'LL WORK WITH The Engineering Excellence team works alongside Engineers, Architects, and Product Managers across Nike Global Technology to consolidate developer tools and advance platform capabilities. This role reports to Kaushik Katira and connects with multiple engineering squads driving platform unification, DevOps modernization, and AI-native delivery practices.

If you're ready to build platforms that redefine how great engineering happens, it's time to join Nike's Global Technology organization. We're transforming how software is built, delivered, and measured — moving from fragmented legacy tools to a unified, AI-native development ecosystem.

We hire the best engineers in the world and give them problems worth solving. WHO WE ARE LOOKING FOR Nike is looking for a Lead Software Engineer who combines strong individual technical execution with the ability to guide and elevate the work of others.

The successful candidate takes ownership of complex technical components, drives high-quality delivery across a squad, and contributes meaningfully to architectural decisions. This role requires someone who has grown beyond executing tasks into shaping how work gets done — setting technical direction, catching issues before they become problems, and building software that lasts.

The ideal candidate brings solid cloud-native engineering experience, a working knowledge of AI-assisted development tooling, and a genuine drive to improve developer productivity at scale. 8–10 years of software engineering experience; Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent combination of education, experience or training Strong proficiency in Java, Node.js, Golang, React, or JavaScript with demonstrated experience building and operating highly scalable cloud-native systems 5+ years of hands-on experience with AWS or major cloud platforms, Kubernetes, containerization, and CI/CD pipeline development Experience with developer tools ecosystem including GitHub, GitHub Actions, artifact management, and developer portal platforms such as Backstage or Pulse Proven ability to lead technical delivery, participate in architectural decisions, and collaborate across cross-functional engineering teams WHAT YOU'LL WORK ON You'll take end-to-end ownership of significant features and subsystems within Nike's developer platform consolidation — working across GitHub, Nike AI Control Plane, Databricks, and Pulse to build tools that thousands of Nike engineers depend on every day.

Lead the design and development of core components for Nike's unified developer platforms, including CI/CD systems, package management infrastructure, and developer portal functionality on Pulse Implement AI-native development tooling that enables agent-led software delivery workflows while maintaining human oversight at critical checkpoints in the development lifecycle Drive technical analysis and delivery for replacing existing costly, duplicative legacy tools with modern, efficient platform solutions aligned to Nike's simplification roadmap Take full ownership of complex features from design through production deployment, ensuring reliability, security, and alignment with engineering excellence standards Participate actively in architectural reviews and technical planning sessions, contributing to decisions that affect platform scalability and developer productivity Support the development of traceability frameworks connecting business requirements to GitHub commits, deployments, and production signals Collaborate with Principal Engineers and squad leads to grow technical skills across the team, contributing to a culture of craft and continuous improvement