Director, Engineering, AI Search

Algolia, Inc.; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Algolia is seeking an Engineering Director to lead multiple teams and shape the technical direction of core real-time search and discovery platforms. You will collaborate with Product, Design, and other stakeholders to translate strategy into scalable, reliable solutions and to drive high-performance outcomes.

The role requires building autonomous teams, mentoring managers, and advancing engineering excellence across a global organization.

Qualifications

• 8–12+ years of engineering experience.
• 3–5+ years managing multiple teams or through managers.
• Proven experience delivering complex, cross-functional projects in a fast-paced, high-growth environment.
• Strong technical background with distributed systems, APIs, and scalable infrastructure.
• Demonstrated ability to lead through others and empower managers and senior engineers.
• Excellent communication skills to align stakeholders and drive clarity.
• Experience operating in distributed or global engineering environments.

Responsibilities

• Lead a group of engineering teams via Engineering Managers and Senior ICs, aligned with product and company priorities.
• Foster AI leadership and a culture of continuous improvement across the engineering function.
• Own delivery, execution, and operational excellence for a defined product or platform area.
• Collaborate with Product, Design, and cross-functional stakeholders to shape roadmaps and deliver customer value.
• Drive engineering best practices across system design, scalability, reliability, and performance.
• Contribute to the senior technology leadership team and organizational planning.

Skills

Engineering leadership

Program/project management

Distributed systems

APIs

Scalable infrastructure

Cross-functional collaboration

Communication excellence

Distributed/global teams

Job description

Algolia is the retrieval intelligence layer that turns intent into trusted, decision-grade outcomes. Powering more than 1.7 trillion queries a year for over 18,000 customers with millisecond latency and 99.999% reliability, we are the recognized leader for Search and Product Discovery by top industry analyst firms. The Algolia platform turns a company's products, content, and business rules into data that humans, applications and AI agents can act upon. The result is trusted customer experiences with stronger conversions for measurable business impact.

About the Team

Algolia’s Engineering team builds the core infrastructure and product features that power real-time search and discovery for thousands of customers around the world. This includes backend services, frontend components, site reliability, and ML-powered capabilities. The team is distributed, collaborative, and committed to technical excellence and continuous learning.

As an Engineering Director, you will lead multiple teams or a critical product area, working closely with Engineering Managers, Product, and Design to deliver scalable, reliable, and high-impact solutions. You will play a key role in translating company strategy into execution, while building strong, autonomous teams and fostering engineering excellence.

Your Role Will Consist Of:

• Leading a group of engineering teams (via Engineering Managers and Senior ICs), ensuring alignment with product and company priorities
• Demonstrates strong AI leadership within the engineering organization by fostering a culture of continuous improvement and proactively evaluating and applying emerging AI technologies to enhance productivity, efficiency, and organizational performance across the broader technology function.
• Owning delivery, execution, and operational excellence for a defined product or platform area
• Partnering closely with Product, Design, and cross-functional stakeholders to shape roadmaps and ensure successful delivery of customer value
• Driving engineering best practices across system design, scalability, reliability, and performance
• Being a member of Algolia’s senior technology leadership team, with significant contributions to engineering excellence and the high performance of the global technology organization, extending beyond the immediate area of responsibility.
• Supporting and coaching Engineering Managers, helping them grow as leaders and build high-performing teams
• Contributing to organizational planning, including headcount, team structure, and quarterly/annual planning cycles
• Ensuring a strong culture of ownership, accountability, and continuous improvement within your organization
• Acting as a bridge between strategy and execution, translating high-level goals into clear team-level priorities
• Serves as a trusted advisor to the CTO and SVP Engineering, providing strategic guidance on engineering leadership, organizational effectiveness, and cross-functional management initiatives across the technology organization.

You Might Be a Fit If You Have:

• 8–12+ years of engineering experience, including 3–5+ years managing multiple teams or managing through managers
• Proven experience delivering complex, cross-functional projects in a fast-paced, high-growth environment
• Strong technical background with experience in distributed systems, APIs, and scalable infrastructure
• Demonstrated ability to lead through others, empowering managers and senior engineers
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to align diverse stakeholders and drive clarity
• Experience operating in distributed or global engineering environments

Nice to Have:

• Experience in developer tools, infrastructure, or data platforms
• Familiarity with product-led growth (PLG) environments
• Exposure to AI/ML-powered products or platforms

Algolia does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, military status, veteran status, disability status, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by law.

The annual base salary compensation range for this role reflects market pay data within this location. The exact compensation offered for this role may vary depending on specific location and job-related knowledge, technical skills, and experience; and is only one part of our Total Rewards philosophy to compensate and recognize employees for their work.

Base Salary Pay Range

FLEXIBLE WORKPLACE STRATEGY:

Algolia’s flexible workplace model is designed to empower all Algolians to fulfill our mission to power search and discovery with ease. We place an emphasis on an individual’s impact, contribution, and output, over their physical location. Algolia is a high-trust environment and many of our team members have the autonomy to choose where they want to work and when.

We have a global presence with offices in Paris, NYC, London, Sydney and Bucharest, however we also offer many of our team members the option to work remotely either as fully remote or hybrid-remote employees. Positions listed as "Remote" are only available for remote work within the specified country. Positions listed within a specific city are only available in that location - depending on the role it may be available with either a hybrid-remote or in-office schedule.

WE’RE LOOKING FOR SOMEONE WHO CAN LIVE OUR VALUES:

• GRIT - Problem-solving and perseverance capability in an ever-changing and growing environment.
• TRUST - Willingness to trust our co-workers and to take ownership.
• CANDOR - Ability to receive and give constructive feedback.
• CARE - Genuine care about other team members, our clients and the decisions we make in the company.
• HUMILITY - Aptitude for learning from others, putting ego aside.

We’re looking for talented, passionate people to help build the world’s best search and discovery technology. We value autonomy, diversity, and collaboration. We’re committed to creating an inclusive workplace where everyone is respected and supported—regardless of race, age, ancestry, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, marital status, color, veteran status, disability, or socioeconomic background.