Company Introduction
We exist to wow our customers. We know we’re doing the right thing when we hear our customers say, “How did we ever live without Coupang?” Born out of an obsession to make shopping, eating, and living easier than ever, we’re collectively disrupting the multi-billion dollar e-commerce industry from the ground up. We are one of the fastest-growing ecommerce companies that established an unparalleled reputation for being a dominant and reliable force in South Korean commerce.
We are proud to have the best of both worlds — a startup culture with the resources of a large global public company. This fuels us to continue our growth and launch new services at the speed we have been since our inception. We are all entrepreneurial surrounded by opportunities to drive new initiatives and innovations. At our core, we are bold and ambitious people that like to get our hands dirty and make a hands-on impact. At Coupang, you will see yourself, your colleagues, your team, and the company grow every day.
Our mission to build the future of commerce is real. We push the boundaries of what’s possible to solve problems and break traditional tradeoffs. Join Coupang now to create an epic experience in this always-on, high-tech, and hyper-connected world.
Job Overview
We are looking for a hands-on Director of Engineering with deep technical expertise and a passion for building secure, reliable, and scalable systems. This role combines technical architecture leadership with people and delivery management. You will lead a team of talented senior engineers while staying close to the code and system design.
Your mission: drive the security, quality, and reliability of our core platforms while mentoring engineers, scaling engineering excellence, and partnering closely with product and leadership on roadmaps.
Key Responsibilities
Responsibilities will include, but not be limited to, the following:
- Design and lead the architecture of secure, scalable backend systems using Java (Spring Boot) and AWS cloud-native services
- Champion DevSecOps principles — integrating security, observability, and automation across the SDLC
- Drive code quality standards, best practices, technical reviews, and system reliability across teams
- Lead by example — write and review code when needed, unblock engineers, and make critical architectural decisions
- Build and grow a high-performing team of senior/staff-level engineers, fostering autonomy, trust, and accountability
- Partner with product and leadership to define and deliver on engineering roadmaps and strategic initiatives
- Implement and evolve best practices in CI/CD, testing, monitoring, and incident response
- Own system reliability, performance, and security posture — conduct regular threat modeling, security reviews, and incident post-mortems
- Integrate Generative AI capabilities (e.g., embeddings, RAG, LLM APIs) into product workflows responsibly and securely
- Create a culture of technical excellence, and continuous learning
Qualifications
- 15+ years of backend/software engineering experience, with at least 3–5 years in engineering leadership, experience in AI/ML development highly desired
- Expertise in Java, Spring Boot, and AWS architecture and services (e.g., ECS, S3, Lambda, RDS, IAM, KMS)
- Proven experience designing and securing multi-tenant, distributed systems
- Deep understanding of DevSecOps, CI/CD pipelines, secure SDLC, and infrastructure as code (e.g., Terraform, CloudFormation)
- Strong experience with code quality standards, technical debt management, and production observability
- Track record of leading and scaling senior technical teams, especially in fast-paced environments
- Comfortable managing delivery and roadmap planning while staying close to technical details
- Experience with reliability engineering practices (e.g., SLOs, chaos testing, incident management)
- Exposure to compliance frameworks (SOC 2, ISO 27001) and security tooling (e.g. OPA, Vault)
- Experience with containerization and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes)
- Prior experience in SaaS, platform teams, or cloud-native product environments is a must
What You Will Get
- A leadership role with real technical impact — you’re not just managing, you’re helping shape the product
- Opportunity to scale a high-performance engineering culture from the ground up
- A team-first, no-ego engineering culture where excellence is expected and supported
Recruitment Process & Others
Recruitment Process
- Application Review - Phone Interview - Onsite (or Virtual Onsite) Interview – Offer
- The exact nature of the recruitment process may vary according to the specific job and may be changed due to scheduling or other circumstances.
- Interview schedules and the results will be informed to the applicant via the e-mail address submitted at the application stage.
Details to Consider
- This job posting may be closed prior to the stated end date for application if all openings are filled.
- Coupang has the right to rescind an offer of employment if a candidate is found to have submitted false information as part of the application process.
- Coupang does not discriminate against disabled applicants or those with veteran status. We are proud to offer equal opportunities for all applicants.
- Job titles and responsibilities may be subject to change depending on the candidate’s overall experience, etc. This will be communicated to the candidate at the appropriate time before the offer.
Privacy Notice
- Your personal information will be collected and managed by Coupang as stated in the Application Privacy Notice located below.
- https://www.coupang.jobs/en/privacy-policy/
Document Return Policy
- This notification is given pursuant to Article 11 (6) of the Fair Hiring Procedure Act.
- A job applicant, who has applied but not been finally selected for a position at Coupang (the “Company”), may request the Company to return his/her hiring documents submitted pursuant to the Fair Hiring Procedure Act. However, this will not apply where the hiring documents were submitted via the website of the Company or e-mail, or where the job applicant submitted those documents voluntarily without a request from the Company. In addition, if the hiring documents were destroyed due to a natural disaster or any other reasons not attributable to the Company, such documents will be deemed to have been returned to the job applicant.
- A job applicant who wishes to request the return of his/her hiring documents pursuant to the main sentence of paragraph 2 above should fill out a “Request for Return of Hiring Documents” [Annex Form No. 3 in the Enforcement Rule of the Fair Hiring Procedure Act] and submit the request to the Company (Coupang Recruiting Team, Tower 730, 570 Songpa-daero, Songpa-gu, Seoul). In such case, within fourteen (14) days from the date of identifying the receipt of the request, the Company will send the hiring documents to the job applicant’s designated address via registered mail. Please be informed that the job applicant is required to pay the postage on the registered mail.
- In preparation for a job applicant’s request for the return of hiring documents pursuant to the main sentence of paragraph 2 above, the Company shall retain the original hiring documents submitted by the job applicant for 180 days from the completion of the recruiting process. If no request is made until the end of this period, all of his/her hiring documents will be destroyed immediately in accordance with the Personal Information Protection Act.
