Software Engineering Leader - Digital Automation at IKEA

Company description

IKEA Group brings together three core businesses: Retail Concept, Range and Supply. Together we work constantly to improve the IKEA offer and make it more accessible for the many people. IKEA Supply is responsible for securing that the product offer is produced and delivered to our customers. We lead the supply agenda across many functions and work together with all business areas, different business units, but also retail markets to secure customer availability in all markets and sales channels at lowest total cost.

Together we create a workplace where everyone feels free to be themselves, to experiment, try new ways, and dare to ask, “What if…?”. We believe in everyday personal growth and offer the opportunity to develop your career globally. At IKEA we have a vibrant culture where ideas are heard, where there is opportunity to learn new skills and where the goal always is “To create a better everyday life for the many people”. We give down-to-earth, straightforward people the possibility to grow, both as individuals and in their professional roles. We offer this position in a fast-paced, truly global environment with an endless supply of challenges and development opportunities.

Job description

As a Software Engineering Leader for Digital Automation, you will shape the technical direction, engineering practices, and architecture of Automation solutions across IKEA Supply. Working closely with Digital Product Teams, Software Engineering Managers, Platform Engineering Leaders, Architects, and business stakeholders, you will drive engineering excellence and help deliver scalable, resilient, and future-ready automation and AI solutions. You will play a key role in defining engineering standards, guiding technical decisions, and evolving our capabilities in automation, AI, Agentic AI, and intelligent workflows.

As a technical leader and role model, you will mentor engineers, promote best practices, and help teams deliver business value through modern engineering and emerging technologies.

More specifically, in this role you will (be)

• Define and drive the engineering direction for Digital Automation platforms and products.
• Act as the technical authority for software engineering, automation engineering, AI engineering, and platform development practices.
• Drive adoption of engineering standards, development frameworks, architecture principles, and secure-by-design practices.
• Lead technical design and architecture discussions for automation, AI, and agentic solutions.
• Mentor software engineers, automation engineers, and technical specialists while fostering a strong engineering culture.
• Evaluate new technology trends and emerging capabilities in AI, Agentic AI, Computer Vision, and Intelligent Automation.
• Partner closely with Architects, Platfrom engineers and Software Engineer managers to define future technical roadmaps.
• Lead Proof of Concepts (PoCs), Proof of Technologies (PoTs), and technical innovation initiatives.
• Drive engineering excellence through reusability, automation, quality practices, observability, and operational resilience.
• Champion AI-native software development and AI-assisted engineering practices across the organization.

Qualification

IKEA are on the journey to transform our digital capabilities, bringing core business processes, people, data & technology together as an enabler for IKEA to become an even better home furnishing company in the future. On this journey we’re doing some amazing things; therefore, we need some amazing people – this position is not an exception.

We are looking for a leader who is passionate about developing people and technology capabilities while enabling business transformation through automation and AI. To succeed in this role, you are a collaborative and people-focused engineering leader who can inspire, coach, and mobilize teams towards shared objectives. You combine strong engineering understanding with the ability to build trust, develop talent, and drive change in a fast-paced environment.

We Believe You MUST have

• Software Engineering Leadership: 8+ years of experience in software engineering, automation engineering, or digital product development, with proven experience leading technical direction across engineering teams.
• Development Background: Strong hands-on development experience using modern programming languages, frameworks, APIs, integrations, and cloud-native architectures.
• Engineering Excellence: Deep understanding of software engineering principles, architecture patterns, DevOps practices, quality engineering, security, scalability, and maintainability.
• Intelligent Automation Expertise: Extensive experience delivering solutions using digital automation technologies like RPA, workflow automation, Process Mining, Power Platform, and AI-enabled automation.
• AI Engineering Experience: Practical experience building, integrating, or governing AI-powered applications and services, including Large Language Models (LLMs), Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), AI copilots, and AI orchestration frameworks.
• Agentic AI Knowledge: Good understanding of Agentic AI concepts, autonomous workflows, multi-agent systems, tool orchestration, human-in-the-loop patterns, and governance considerations.
• Technical Leadership: Experience driving engineering standards, technical roadmaps, architecture decisions, and establishing best practices across distributed teams.
• DevOps & AI Tooling: Experience leveraging AI-assisted engineering tools and modern development practices to improve developer productivity and software quality.

Nice to have

• Knowledge of Computer Vision, Intelligent Document Processing (IDP), OCR technologies, and multimodal AI solutions.
• Experience with Microsoft Azure AI, Azure OpenAI, Microsoft Copilot Studio, AI Foundry, or equivalent AI platforms.
• Experience building enterprise-grade AI and automation platforms.
• UiPath Solution Architect, Advanced Developer, or Microsoft AI certifications.

More Information

In this role you will report to our Development Manager – Digital Automation Team within Supply Data & Technology.

The IKEA culture and values are crucial for our business and day-to-day work life. For you to thrive and grow with IKEA it’s important for us that you share our values! You can read more regarding our values and life at IKEA on our website www.ikea.com .

This position is located Warsaw, please also note that we do only handle applications in English and no applications coming in by email. We look forward to receiving your application at the latest 9th of October.

You might have some questions about the recruitment process, and we are more than happy to answer those! Feel free to connect with the People & Culture Generalist Katarzyna Ziółkowska-Niezgoda.