Engineering Manager - Search Engine Team

Work Location Type: Remote  

Req Number 322355

About Grainger:

W.W. Grainger, Inc., is a leading broad line distributor with operations primarily in North America, Japan and the United Kingdom. At Grainger, We Keep the World Working® by serving more than 4.5 million customers worldwide with products and solutions delivered through innovative technology and deep customer relationships. Known for its commitment to service and award-winning culture, the Company had 2024 revenue of $17.2 billion across its two business models. In the High-Touch Solutions segment, Grainger offers approximately 2 million maintenances, repair and operating (MRO) products and services, including technical support and inventory management. In the Endless Assortment segment, Zoro.com offers customers access to more than 14 million products, and MonotaRO.com offers more than 24 million products. For more information, visit www.grainger.com.  

 Compensation

The anticipated base pay compensation range for this position is $121,500.00  to $202,500.00.

Rewards and Benefits:

With benefits starting on day one, our programs provide choice and flexibility to meet team members' individual needs, including:

• Medical, dental, vision, and life insurance plans with coverage starting on day one of employment and 6 free sessions each year with a licensed therapist to support your emotional wellbeing.
• 18 paid time off (PTO) days annually for full-time employees (accrual prorated based on employment start date) and 6 company holidays per year.
• 6% company contribution to a 401(k) Retirement Savings Plan each pay period, no employee contribution required.
• Employee discounts, tuition reimbursement, student loan refinancing and free access to financial counseling, education, and tools.
• Maternity support programs, nursing benefits, and up to 14 weeks paid leave for birth parents and up to 4 weeks paid leave for non-birth parents.

For additional information and details regarding Grainger’s benefits, please click on the link below:

https://experience100.ehr.com/grainger/Home/Tools-Resources/Key-Resources/New-Hire

The pay range provided above is not a guarantee of compensation.  The range reflects the potential base pay for this role at the time of this posting based on the job grade for this position. Individual base pay compensation will depend, in part, on factors such as geographic work location and relevant experience and skills.   

The anticipated compensation range described above is subject to change and the compensation ultimately paid may be higher or lower than the range described above. 

Grainger reserves the right to amend, modify, or terminate its compensation and benefit programs in its sole discretion at any time, consistent with applicable law.  

Position Summary:

We are looking for an experienced Engineering Manager to lead our Search Engine Team within our Product Engineering organization. The ideal candidate brings a mix of deep technical expertise and strategic leadership, particularly in the areas of Solr-based search, semantic and hybrid search systems, and collaboration with ML teams. This role is pivotal in modernizing legacy systems while driving forward-thinking, next-generation search capabilities.

You Will:

Team Leadership & People Management:

• Manage a 10-12-person remote team including two tech leads. Responsible for coaching, hiring, and performance management, while shaping an inclusive and growth-oriented engineering culture.

Search Strategy & Technical Execution:

• Lead the transition from legacy Solr infrastructure to modern, semantic, and hybrid search solutions leveraging AWS. Drive roadmap planning in collaboration with product and ML leadership.

System Modernization:

• Oversee and evolve the current search indexing pipeline and AWS infrastructure. Partner with internal experts to explore LLMs, vector databases, and semantic models for enhanced customer discovery.

Cross-Functional Collaboration:

• Work closely with product managers, architects, and machine learning teams to align on feature development, scalability, and performance.

Operational Excellence:

• Ensure system uptime, stability, and quality across all stages of development and production. Proactively manage risk and incident response processes.

You Have:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field (or equivalent experience).

• 4+ years of engineering management experience (minimum of 2 required)

• Prior hands-on software development experience (Java/AWS preferred)

• Experience modernizing large-scale search systems

• Deep expertise in Solr search engine technologies

• Familiarity with semantic search, vector databases, and hybrid search models

• Proven ability to work with ML teams and integrate search with AI/ML capabilities

• Strong leadership, communication, and technical strategy development skills

• Comfortable with remote-first environment

• Willingness to travel to Chicago once per quarter

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience with LLM integration in eCommerce or search platforms
• Background in AWS-based infrastructure and indexing pipelines
• Familiarity with tools and platforms like Elasticsearch, Vespa, or Pinecone
• Exposure to managing a blend of FTEs and contractors with a plan to convert to all FTEs

 We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex (including pregnancy), national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity or expression, protected veteran status or any other protected characteristic under federal, state, or local law. We are proud to be an equal opportunity workplace.

We are committed to fostering an inclusive, accessible work environment that includes both providing reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities during the application and hiring process as well as throughout the course of one’s employment, should you need a reasonable accommodation during the application and selection process, including, but not limited to use of our website, any part of the application, interview or hiring process, please advise us so that we can provide appropriate assistance.