Director, Digital Experience Platforms

Embark on a rewarding career with Sobeys Inc., celebrated among Canada’s Top 100 employers where your unique contributions drive success.

Role Summary

The Director, Digital Experience Platforms (DXP) is accountable for the strategy, engineering delivery, operations, reliability, and evolution of all customer-facing digital experience platforms across Empire banners. This role leads the technology execution of web, mobile, content, search, UX platform capabilities, and front-end engineering ecosystems, ensuring seamless, scalable, secure, and high-performing customer experiences.

The Director serves as the primary technology counterpart to Digital Experience, Digital Product, Customer Engagement, Commerce, and Banner teams, translating business vision into enterprise-grade digital capabilities. The role is responsible for balancing innovation, delivery velocity, operational excellence, and platform sustainability while enabling a product-led operating model.

Accountabilities & Responsibilities

Digital Experience Platform Leadership

• Own the end-to-end technology strategy, roadmap, delivery, and operation of all digital experience platforms across web, mobile, and customer-facing digital channels.
• Define the future-state architecture and capability evolution roadmap for DXP technologies including Adobe Experience Manager (AEM), front-end platforms, mobile applications, search technologies, design systems, and supporting digital services.
• Ensure platform capabilities support enterprise digital commerce objectives, customer experience strategies, and banner-specific priorities.
• Establish technology standards, engineering practices, and governance frameworks for front-end and customer experience platforms.

Engineering Delivery & Execution

• Lead multiple engineering teams responsible for:
  • Customer websites
  • Mobile applications
  • Front-end engineering
  • Search and discovery platforms
  • Design systems
  • Content delivery platforms
  • AEM ecosystem
• Drive delivery of strategic initiatives through Agile product teams.
• Ensure predictable execution, release readiness, and high-quality software delivery.
• Partner with Product and Business teams to define roadmaps, priorities, and release strategies.
• Govern delivery performance, release quality, technical debt management, and modernization initiatives.

Digital Experience Reliability & Operations

• Own availability, performance, scalability, and resilience of all digital experience platforms.
• Establish operational excellence standards for:
  • Incident management
  • Production support
  • Monitoring and observability
  • Disaster recovery
  • Capacity planning
• Lead major incident response and continuous service improvement initiatives.
• Ensure regulatory, privacy, accessibility, and security compliance requirements are embedded within platform delivery.

UX Technology & Experience Enablement

• Own the technology ecosystem that enables experience delivery, including:
  • Design systems
  • Component libraries
  • Content management capabilities
  • Front-end frameworks
• Partner with UX and CX teams to ensure customer experience strategies are translated into scalable technology solutions.
• Build strong alignment between design intent and engineering execution.
• Enable consistency across banners while balancing local business needs.

Platform Modernization & Innovation

• Champion modern engineering practices including:
  • Headless architecture
  • API-first development
  • Component-driven development
  • DevOps and CI/CD
  • Cloud-native architecture
• Evaluate emerging technologies and industry trends to continuously improve customer experiences.
• Drive platform simplification and technology rationalization to reduce complexity and improve speed-to-market.

Leadership Responsibilities

• Lead, coach, and develop a high-performing team of managers, architects, Analysts and Developers.
• Foster a culture of accountability, innovation, customer obsession, and operational excellence.
• Build succession plans and talent development strategies for key digital capabilities.
• Establish clear ownership and measurable outcomes across engineering and platform teams.
• Create an environment focused on collaboration, continuous improvement, and execution excellence.

Qualifications

Education

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Technology, or related discipline.
• Master's degree considered an asset.

Experience

• 12+ years of progressive experience leading large-scale digital engineering organizations.
• Proven experience managing customer-facing digital platforms at enterprise scale.
• Experience leading large Agile product and engineering teams.
• Strong background in digital commerce, customer experience, or omnichannel retail environments.

Technical Expertise

• Adobe Experience Manager (AEM)
• Headless and composable architectures
• React / Next.js ecosystems
• Mobile application platforms (iOS and Android)
• API and microservices architecture
• Search and discovery technologies
• Cloud platforms (Azure preferred)
• DevOps and CI/CD practices
• UX design systems and front-end architectures

Who We Are

Sobeys is one of Canada’s leading grocery retailers, with more than 1,600 stores across all 10 provinces and banners including Sobeys, Safeway, IGA, Foodland, FreshCo, Thrifty Foods, and Lawtons Drug Stores. Our 128,000 teammates and franchise affiliates are passionate about delivering great food and exceptional experiences to our customers and communities.

Total Rewards

We offer a Total Rewards package designed to support teammates at work and in life. Depending on role and eligibility, teammates may receive health and dental benefits, retirement and savings programs including an Employee Share Ownership Plan, a 10% in-store discount at participating banners, virtual healthcare and an Employee and Family Assistance Program, learning and development opportunities, parental leave top‑up, and paid vacation.

• Health and dental benefits
• Retirement and savings programs including an Employee Share Ownership Plan
• A 10% in-store discount at participating banners
• Virtual healthcare
• Employee and Family Assistance Program
• Learning and development opportunities
• Parental leave top‑up
• Paid vacation

Sobeys is committed to providing a compensation structure that is flexible, equitable and competitive in the market to enable performance and growth.

To learn more about this opportunity including the expected range of compensation in accordance with Pay Transparency Legislation where required

Individual compensation is determined based on qualifications, experience, and internal equity within the range provided.

Additional Information

External websites may share our organization's job postings which includes compensation information based on similar roles and market benchmarks. These figures are provided for general comparison purposes only and are not issued or verified by our organization.

We may use Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools to support efficiencies in the candidate screening, assessment, and recruitment processes. These AI tools do not make hiring decisions on behalf of the Company. Hiring decisions are made by our Hiring Teams.

Sobeys is committed to creating accessible and inclusive hiring processes. We will work with applicants requesting accommodation at any stage of the recruitment process.

Please note: Successful candidates will be required to provide documentation to prove their legal ability to work in the position during the onboarding process. Documentation will be assessed by the employer prior to commencement of work.