Principal product manager

About the Job
We currently have an exciting opportunity for a principal product manager to join our retail client on Digital Product team during a pivotal inflection point. This highly visible, strategic role is ideal for a product leader with deep experience in e-commerce platforms and end-to-end replatforming. You will lead vendor evaluation and selection efforts as we consider a full-code rewrite of our digital commerce experience. In this role, you will weigh our current platform against best-in-class solutions. This is a rare opportunity to help chart the next decade of our digital architecture.

What You ll Do | Key Accountabilities

• Lead our e-commerce platform evaluation strategy, guiding a comprehensive vendor assessment process from RFI to final selection considering technical fit, business requirements, customer experience, and long-term scalability.

• Own and drive the product lifecycle for a major commerce platform rewrite initiative, from strategic framing to execution readiness.

• Apply deep market expertise to guide platform tradeoffs (build vs buy), evaluating our existing solution against emerging and established vendors.

• Act as the primary product partner for technology, architecture, and business stakeholders as we reimagine our digital foundation.

• Model excellence in cross-functional collaboration, especially with engineering, UX, architecture, and enterprise IT to define the right path forward.

• Lead a dedicated discovery effort to gather business needs across domains (merchandising, fulfillment, customer service, site operations, etc.) and translate them into a robust evaluation framework.

• Define and manage requirements for technical and functional capabilities required in a next-generation e-commerce solution.

• Guide a product squad through early-stage replatforming planning, including defining scope, migration approach, MVP, and phased rollouts.

• Provide mentorship to other product managers on platform strategy, eCommerce vendor management, and best practices in long-term product visioning.

• 10+ years of experience in product management with a strong emphasis on e-commerce platforms and digital architecture strategy

• Proven experience leading a full-cycle vendor evaluation and replatforming effort, including requirements gathering, vendor scorecarding, stakeholder alignment, and executive recommendation

• Extensive experience with third-party e-commerce platforms, including any or all: Shopify Plus, Commercetools, BigCommerce, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, Magento, or similar

• Familiarity with legacy and enterprise commerce systems like HCL Commerce (WebSphere Commerce) and tradeoffs associated with monolith-to-composable migrations

• Deep understanding of e-commerce architecture patterns, including headless commerce, API-first platforms, PIMs, OMS integrations, and edge services like CDN/personalization layers

• Strategic thinker with the ability to synthesize technical complexity into business value and guide senior leadership through tradeoff discussions

• Experience working closely with senior architects and senior leadership on large-scale transformation projects

• Expertise in product discovery practices and developing frameworks to evaluate technical, operational, and customer impact of multiple platform options

• Outstanding written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to clearly articulate product vision, risks, and recommendations to technical and non-technical audiences

• Strong leadership presence and ability to navigate ambiguity while building alignment and clarity across teams

• Passion for digital commerce, innovation, and shaping the long-term success of the customer experience