Our Zalando Engineering Blog is back! Henning Jacobs, Senior Principal Engineer, describes the technical setup behind engineering.zalando.com and why the team decided against working with the previously used CMS.
We recently opened our tenth Zalando Outlet in Ulm's Sedelhöfe. With the launch of the new store, we also added Beauty products to the existing assortment.
Zalando is Europe’s leading online platform for fashion and lifestyle. We offer our 32 million active customers a one-stop, convenient shopping experience with an extensive selection of fashion articles including shoes, apparel and accessories, with free delivery and returns.
Founded in Berlin in 2008, our platform is a one-stop fashion destination for inspiration, innovation and interaction. As Europe’s most fashionable tech company, we work hard to find digital solutions for every aspect of the fashion journey: for our customers, partners and every valuable player in the Zalando story.
Our assortment of almost 2,500 international brands ranges from popular global brands, fast fashion and local brands, and is complemented by our private label products. Our localized offering addresses the distinct preferences of our customers in each of the 17 European markets we serve: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Poland and the United Kingdom.
Our growing logistics network allows us to efficiently serve our customers and brand partners throughout Europe, supported by warehouses in Northern Italy, France and Sweden with a focus on local customer needs.
We believe that the deep integration of fashion, customer operations and technology gives us the capability to deliver a compelling value proposition to both our customers and fashion brand partners. Zalando’s shops attract over 380 million visits per month. In 2019, 80% of traffic came from mobile devices, resulting in 32 million active customers and growth to €6.5 billion in revenue.
Every employee writes Zalando's success story every day. We are proud of our strong, international team that has quickly put promising ideas into action and has always broken new ground to find the best solution together.
Meet some of our people that play Zalando.
"1993 I came to Germany fleeing from the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. 8 years of the 24 years that I'm in Germany now I live in Berlin. I've done a lot of different jobs throughout my career but no job compares to my current one. I'm working in Zalando's Content Creation for two years now and it feels like a second home. I'm very thankful for all the new people I constantly get to meet and am excited to be surrounded by so much creativity every day. I plan to stay here :)" Mehmed Suko, Model Booker.
"There is nothing better than finding the balance to enjoy being a dev and a mum. My idol Michael Jordan says 'JUST DO IT' - so I thought doing something in the 'IT' industry. Talking about the feeling of Zalando - it's as crazy as me at times, in the best possible way. I mean, I quit my job when I was pregnant to take on the challenge of coming to the foreign land of Germany. Zalando attracts and connects intelligent people, grows their curiosity, encourages sparkling ideas and pushes them to go as far as they can go. For me, Zalando is a wonderland of freedom." Qian Jiang, Software Engineer.
"I joined Zalando SE after quitting my job at a major tech company in Silicon Valley. Now I can combine my passion for Fashion and Tech and work in Germany's Berlin Valley. I currently lead an ambitious operations team at the Zalando Partner Program where we connect leading fashion brands to the Zalando platform while shaping the online fashion marketplace of the future. We are always looking for great people to join us!" Hanna Wolter, Team Lead Integration.
We reimagine fashion – and want to ask the right questions when things get more complex. For us, our purpose is a kind of guide with which we aim to achieve a common goal. Our purpose also gives us – as well as all the newly emerging business areas and collaborations that we are entering into as a company – a direction. In this way, we make every decision with complete clarity. Our purpose does not provide us with answers. However, it does help us to ask the right questions.
WE ARE DOERS.
Every day that we come to work, we experiment, create, assemble, improve – and rethink.
WE ARE INVENTORS.
From the very first moment, we had the crazy idea that the fashion ecosystem should benefit everyone – whether you celebrate your personal style every day, you simply want something to wear, or you earn money with your outfits.
WE ARE PEOPLE.
No matter which business unit we belong to, every one of us wants to make the world of fashion more intelligent, friendlier and more open. For the doers and the rebels, brands and trendsetters. For everyone who is fed up with playing by the fashion rules of yesterday. In all this, we never lose sight of the big picture. The clothing, the clichés and the supply chain. In order to create a system that benefits everyone.
GOOD FOR ALL?
Our purpose challenges us to find solutions that produce the best results for people. Whether for customers, producers, trendsetters or brands, every single one plays an important role – directly or indirectly – in Zalando’s growing sphere of influence.
In 2019, we launched our most ambitious sustainability strategy yet: do.MORE. Our vision is to be a sustainable fashion platform with a net-positive impact for people and the planet. And we’ve made very specific commitments for how we want to take fast action to tackle the most pressing sustainability challenges we face in our business. We are determined to push through tough conventions and tackle challenges head-on.
Improving our own operations is one part of how we achieve our vision, but it also means reaching further; across the entire industry and value chain. Having a net-positive impact means that we run our business in a way that gives back more to society and the environment than we take. From beginning to end, we recognize our influence on how brand partners source and make their products, and how our customers buy and care for them later. We’ve thought carefully about how we will get there. You can learn more about it here.
Berlin:
Zalando was founded in Berlin and this is where it all comes together. With more than 6,000 employees spread around the city, Berlin is not just part of our DNA, it’s a pulse that runs through everything we do. Here’s where you’ll find hundreds of technologists swapping ideas and methods with fashion teams, and where the different parts of the business fuse to create a platform ideally set up to meet the challenges of an ever-changing fashion ecosystem.
At our Fashion Insights Centre in Dublin we connect data science and engineering to find and scale the technologies of tomorrow, pushing the boundaries of Zalando as a fashion knowledge platform. This involves multidisciplinary teams working together, designing and building large scale products and services that evolve our platform and impact the entire fashion ecosystem.
Teams at our Helsinki Tech Hub work on many of the cornerstones of our Fashion Store, including personalization and social fashion influencing components. Through full stack engineering and research, we turn visionary ideas into new emerging businesses with real potential. By tackling the most challenging problems for the fashion industry, we drive the personal digital experience and underlying knowledge models to create the most inspirational fashion experience for our customers.
Our team in Dortmund started as a specialist unit handling everything that relates to Payment. Here we develop our monitoring systems, collaborating with payment service providers to find innovative ways to create the most user-friendly checkout experience possible. We continuously add new areas of competency, with teams now focused on the tech challenges connected to mission-critical topics including consumer incentives, inventory management, transportation, fulfillment and stock valuation.
Our Mönchengladbach logistics center is a 130,000sqm state-of-the-art fulfillment center, purpose-built for Zalando in 2013. From here we process and ship tens of thousands of orders every day – to customers across Europe. As well as being part of Europe’s busiest fashion logistics network, we’re also continuously advancing our technology and processes. By pushing ourselves to think smarter and adapt faster, our teams are setting new levels of excellence for the industry while meeting the complex needs of our customers, helping people connect to fashion in ways that were never previously possible.
Our Erfurt logistics center is the first Zalando fulfillment center that we developed from scratch. Opened in 2012, the 130,000sqm center set new benchmarks for the industry, combining state-of-the-art infrastructure with smart thinking and great team support. From here we process and ship tens of thousands of orders every day – to customers across Europe. As well as being part of Europe’s busiest fashion logistics network, we’re also continuously advancing our technology and processes. This enables our teams to connect fashion to people faster and in ways that were previously unimaginable.
Zalando adtech lab spearheads data-driven media buying efforts with a focus on fashion-oriented buying strategies for accurate and relevant consumer targeting. As a team of data scientists, engineers and product managers, we tackle issues such as low latency and high throughput applications, pioneering ad technologies for partner brands as well as for Zalando.
We are also present in Lahr, and many other locations in Germany and Europe.
I have been working at Zalando full-time (More than 3 years)
Pros
Work life balance
Work culture
Learning opportunities
Latest technology
Zalando discount
Cons
There is no vision for long term.
Application
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 4+ weeks. I interviewed at Zalando (Helsinki, Southern Finland (Finland)) in May 2020.
Interview
In general: I would say it's one of my best interview experiences at my top 10 Software companies list, I didn't make the final offer however I'm so happy to meet all people there and invest my time with them.
The process started with contact with one amazing Zalando recruiter, explained to me everything, and then arrange my next steps.
2nd Codility exam.
3rd meet the manager had an online meeting with him technically and behaviorally, both were so happy after this step.
4th Onsite interview (Unlikely we had to have it online due to current situation) 4 interviews include life coding session (Problem-solving), system design, behavioral, Technical topics, overall this day I meet 7 new engineers between seniors and team leads.
Again I passed with amazing feedback from both sides, they offered me an offer which I was still thinking about and then the manager thought also that I'll fit for the leading position and I was happy to conduct one more interview behavioral and leading skils with him and a team lead.
Thankfully I managed to pass and it was great, Zalando gives me an offer but due to other points we didn't agree to proceed now, we wished luck for each other with great respect and appreciation and wishing our roads might cross in the feature.
Interview Questions
