Zalando Announces the Opening of its New Technology Hub in Lisbon: Aims to Create 50 Jobs During First Year

• Zalando has just announced the opening of its third technology hub outside of Germany, in Lisbon

• The hub will open at the beginning of 2018 with plans to create 50 jobs in the first year of operations

• The local team will focus on the digital experience of the Zalando Fashion Store

• Expansion of the tech team in Dublin and Helsinki is on track, focusing on many of the cornerstones of the Zalando Fashion Store, including personalization and social fashion influencing components.

LISBON, 03 NOVEMBER 2017 // Zalando SE, Europe’s leading online fashion platform, continues to expand its technology footprint internationally. At the beginning of 2018, the company will open a tech hub in Lisbon, the third of its kind internationally.

Zalando aims to boost its platform operations and increase digital offers to connect people and fashion in multiple ways. The new hub in Lisbon will play a key role in this strategy by focusing on the development of an enhanced digital experience for the customers of the Zalando Fashion Store, currently available in 15 European markets.

"As e-commerce develops, consumer behaviour becomes increasingly sophisticated. It is therefore essential to be on top of digital innovations and to offer the best overall shopping experience. The opening of a dedicated technology hub with a strong focus on the digital experience of our Fashion Store is a strategic step to ensure we stay ahead of customer expectations in terms of personalization, inspiration and frictionless shopping”, says Marc Lamik, Head of Innovation and Partnerships at Zalando. “Lisbon offers a great environment to develop our new hub. The city’s tech ecosystem will allow us to attract the talent we need, and we are looking forward to engaging in fruitful exchanges with the local startup community".

Zalando will open the new hub at the beginning of 2018 and create more than 50 jobs in Lisbon over the first year of operations. The online fashion platform is actively recruiting Frontend and Backend Software Engineers, but also Product Managers and UX Designers from across the industry and from within academic institutions, to work on products and features that will further enhance the digital experience of the Fashion Store.

“Technology has always been the backbone of our company. Thanks to over 200 specialized delivery teams, we keep enhancing the capabilities that allow our platform to operate efficiently and  grow, and we constantly improve our offer towards customers and partners,” says Philipp Erler, SVP Digital Experience at Zalando. “Besides allowing us to concentrate resources on the development of our Fashion Store – a cornerstone in the success of Zalando – the new hub in Lisbon will also contribute to the diversification of our technological footprint, which keeps expanding at a fast pace”.

The opening in Lisbon constitutes Zalando’s third technology hub outside of Germany following the opening of the Fashion Insights Centre in Dublin and the technology hub in Helsinki in 2015. The focus of operations in Ireland is deep data science and engineering research, involving R&D around how to build a real-time insight platform around fashion. In Finland, the tech team works on many of the cornerstones of the Zalando Fashion Store, including personalization and social fashion influencing components.

Overall, Zalando’s tech team has grown to a headcount of more than 1,800 employees across all locations. Most members of Zalando Technology are located at the company’s headquarters in Berlin with around 120 in the German hubs in Dortmund and Hamburg. Dublin and Helsinki boast a staff of around 100 each.

Zalando has already started recruitment for the Lisbon tech hub. Information on the available positions can be found on the company’s career website: http://zln.do/2iXivZ7

Zalando Technology at a glance

• Zalando’s tech team is located in Berlin (HQ), Dortmund, Hamburg, Erfurt and Mönchengladbach, Germany; Dublin, Ireland; Helsinki, Finland; and from Q1 2018 Lisbon, Portugal.

• More than 1,800 employees of over 50 different nationalities

• Over 200 delivery teams across all locations

• Small, autonomous teams applying an agile approach, based on purpose, autonomy, mastery and trust

• Zalando platform mostly built in-house, using open source and cutting-edge technologies such as React, Scala, Python, Cassandra, Clojure, AWS, and Docker

• Five key principles of building systems: API First, REST, SaaS, cloud, and microservices