Mitch Vanderlinden
Senior Engineering Manager, leadership for e-commerce.
Dynamic Senior Manager with expertise in e-commerce solutions. Skilled in leading teams to innovate and optimize digital platforms. Passionate about transforming business challenges into technical solutions.
About Me
Senior Engineering Manager with deep experience in e-commerce platforms, cloud infrastructure, and engineering leadership. I help teams ship faster, raise engineering health, and turn business challenges into scalable technical solutions.
Quick Facts
Current Role
Senior Engineering Manager at Kaufland e-commerce GmbH
Location
Berlin, Germany
Focus
Engineering leadership, e-commerce, cloud & AWS
Languages
Interests
Skills
Strengths that show up in day-to-day leadership: solving hard delivery problems, learning fast, and shipping useful side projects.
Problem Solving
Exceptional skills in identifying challenges within digital and e-commerce landscapes and implementing effective, innovative solutions.
Learning and Adaptability
Committed to staying at the forefront of technology, demonstrating an ongoing willingness to explore new tools and methodologies to stay ahead in a rapidly evolving industry.
Success side projects
Side projects that ship — including springkastelen-dilsen.be, an online presence for bouncing-castle rental in Belgium.
Experience
List of professional working experience across e-commerce leadership and software engineering.
Kaufland e-commerce GmbH
Senior Engineering Manager
Leading cross-functional engineering teams in digital commerce.
Key Achievements
- Team Leadership and Development: Managing two cross-functional teams (5-6 mid to senior-level engineers) across frontend and backend specializations, fostering a culture of empowerment through self-directed discovery while providing active support, guidance, and strategic unblocking to achieve team goals.
- Process Optimization and Operational Excellence: Streamlined development cycles and discovery processes to prioritize execution readiness, implemented structured sprint planning with clear Definition of Done (DoD) and Definition of Ready (DoR), and enhanced code review practices with architectural questioning to elevate decision-making quality across the team.
- Cross-functional Collaboration and Communication: Established seamless communication channels between engineering and product teams, orchestrated clean initiative kickoffs, targeted refinement sessions, and strategic sprint planning that resulted in increased team velocity, reduced context switching, and measurably higher team satisfaction and engagement.
- Architectural Discovery and Technical Strategy: Enabled teams to think beyond immediate problem statements by providing tools, insights, and frameworks for informed architectural decisions, positioning the team to explore scalable solutions while maintaining alignment with business objectives.
CONPUR GmbH
Head of Development
Formerly ROOBEO GmbH — e-commerce solutions and platform development.
Key Achievements
- Leadership and Team Management: Took on the role of Head of Development, successfully managing a diverse, global team of 10 remote engineers with various skill sets. Implemented unified development cycles and reintroduced sprint methodologies to streamline processes and foster stronger collaboration between engineering teams and product owners.
- Innovative Platform Development: Played a crucial role in the conceptualization and development of the ROOBEO platform. Recognized the need for technological advancement beyond Magento 2 and led the shift towards new technologies focusing on order, checkout, import, and terms services.
- Strategic Problem Solving and Collaboration: Proactively addressed team needs within sprints, significantly boosting productivity and allowing for time dedicated to technology exploration.
Geschenkidee D&A GmbH
Head of Development
International online gift retail and digital commerce.
Key Achievements
- Leadership and Project Management: Took over leadership of a 10-member IT development team, leading the transition from Magento to a REST microservice architecture that improved communication across international shops, ERP systems, and data warehouses.
- Technical Initiatives and Cloud Migration: Successfully spearheaded the migration of the company’s online shops to Amazon Web Services (AWS), significantly enhancing infrastructure scalability and performance.
- Compliance and Data Protection: Led GDPR compliance measures to protect customer data and privacy.
Regalos & Regali GmbH
Senior PHP developer
In-house e-commerce and ERP projects.
Key Achievements
- Strategic Project Leadership: Played a pivotal role in ERP implementation and marketing solutions focused on modernizing infrastructure for scalability.
- Efficient Team Coordination and Backlog Management: Led a team of three developers, prioritizing critical issues and streamlining development to enhance productivity.
- Innovative System Overhaul and Synchronization: Led a comprehensive project to revamp a Magento 1 Multishop setup into a unified installation, including a centralized PIM system across 17 installations.
Summit Media Ltd.
Senior PHP developer
High-traffic Magento Enterprise web stores.
Key Achievements
- Maintenance of several high-traffic Magento Enterprise web stores and feature development.
OTYS Recruiting Technology
PHP developer
Recruitment software for the Dutch market.
Key Achievements
- Development of proprietary recruitment software tailored for the Dutch market.
Portfolio
Favourite professional outcomes — the work I am most proud of as an engineering leader.
Engineering Health and Team Transformation
At Kaufland e-commerce GmbH, I transformed team collaboration and engineering health across cross-functional teams by implementing mentoring-based leadership, structured discovery processes, and enhanced code review practices. This strategic approach delivered faster project delivery velocity, reduced context switching, improved team satisfaction, and fostered a culture of architectural thinking and knowledge sharing.
Revitalization Infrastructure
Spearheading the overhaul of a Magento 1 Multishop installation into a unified, scalable platform, I introduced a centralized Product Information Management (PIM) system, optimizing data synchronization across 17 installations and positioning us as a leader in digital commerce innovation.
Team Leadership
In my capacity as Head of Development, I successfully managed a global team of remote engineers, revolutionizing our development process with unified cycles and sprints, which markedly increased productivity and technological exploration.
Innovative Development of the ROOBEO Platform
Leading the development of the ROOBEO platform, I played a pivotal role in integrating cutting-edge technologies, enhancing business processes, and collaborating with product and business owners to secure our position at the forefront of the e-commerce solutions sector.
Let's Connect
Send me a message
Contact Information
Eager to tackle new challenges. With a track record of transforming digital landscapes and a passion for innovation, I'm ready to bring expertise in cloud solutions, e-commerce optimization, and team leadership to your organization.