Director, Product Engineering - Search

Grainger; Chicago (IL); Hybrid; USD 176,000 - 294,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, vision

401(k) with match

PTO 18 days

Tuition reimbursement

Employee discounts

Job summary

Grainger, a leading distributor, seeks a Director of Product Engineering to lead the Search organization across Grainger’s digital experiences. You’ll guide engineering managers, tech leads, and engineers to deliver scalable, high-impact search capabilities serving millions of customers.

This is a highly collaborative, hybrid role based at our downtown Chicago Mart office. You’ll partner with Product, Architecture, and Data Science to shape the roadmap, champion modern search stacks from

Qualifications

• 7+ years of engineering leadership experience.
• Experience leading managers.
• Proven track record in scalable search or information retrieval.
• Strong knowledge of Agile, CI/CD, and cloud platforms (AWS).
• Experience collaborating with data science teams.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or related field.

Responsibilities

• Lead cross-functional teams powering Grainger Search across digital touchpoints.
• Shape roadmaps with Product, Architecture, and Data Science.
• Ensure modern, resilient search stack delivering measurable business impact.
• Champion hybrid retrieval strategy with Solr, ML, and semantic models.
• Manage and mentor Engineering Managers and Senior Managers.
• Foster inclusive culture with psychological safety and learning.
• Drive goals, accountability, and autonomy across teams.
• Support hiring, onboarding, career growth, and succession planning.

Skills

Engineering leadership

Managing managers

Agile

CI/CD

AWS

ML-powered search

Data science collaboration

Product thinking

Collaboration

People development

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science

Job description

About Grainger

W.W. Grainger, Inc. is a leading broad line distributor with operations primarily in North America and Japan. At Grainger, We Keep the World Working® by serving more than 4.6 million customers worldwide with maintenance, repair and operating (MRO) products and value-added solutions delivered through innovative technology and deep customer expertise. Known for its commitment to service and purpose-driven culture, the Company reported 2025 revenue of $17.9 billion. For more information, visitwww.grainger.com.

Work Location Type: Hybrid

Req Number 322253

About Grainger

W.W. Grainger, Inc. is a leading broad line distributor with operations primarily in North America and Japan. At Grainger, We Keep the World Working® by serving more than 4.6 million customers worldwide with maintenance, repair and operating (MRO) products and value-added solutions delivered through innovative technology and deep customer expertise. Known for its commitment to service and purpose-driven culture, the Company reported 2025 revenue of $17.9 billion. For more information, visitwww.grainger.com.

Compensation

The anticipated base pay compensation range for this position is $176,300.00 – $293,800.00. This role is eligible for an incentive target of up to 25%, based on the achievement of individual and company performance objectives in accordance with the current terms of the incentive program which are subject to change.

Rewards And Benefits

• 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.

Grainger Benefits

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 Details

We’re seeking a Director of Product Engineering to lead our Search organization — the team behind the intelligence that powers discovery across Grainger’s digital experiences. You’ll support a team of engineering managers, tech leads, and engineers focused on delivering best-in-class search capabilities that serve millions of customers and support billions in revenue.

This is a highly collaborative leadership role that collaborates across engineering, product, architecture, and data science. You’ll bring a modern technical mindset, a people-first leadership approach, and a passion for building systems that scale.

You will report to the Sr. Director of Product Engineering. This is a hybrid role based in our downtown Chicago Mart office.

You Will

• Lead multiple cross-functional teams responsible for powering search on Grainger.com and other digital touchpoints.
• Shape the roadmap in close partnership with Product, Architecture, and Data Science.
• Ensure Grainger’s search stack — from indexing to ranking to retrieval — is modern, resilient, and delivering measurable business impact.
• Champion a hybrid retrieval strategy that blends traditional techniques (e.g., Solr) with ML and semantic models.

• Manage and mentor a group of Engineering Managers and Senior Managers.
• Build a strong, inclusive, and high-performing culture grounded in psychological safety, continuous learning, and technical excellence.
• Drive clear goals, accountability, and autonomy across teams.
• Support hiring, onboarding, career growth, and succession planning.

• Strengthen agile practices, engineering quality, observability, and operational rigor.
• Use metrics to assess system health, delivery velocity, and customer outcomes.
• Partner with peers across the organization to remove blockers, align strategy, and prioritize wisely.
• Champion DevOps, CI/CD, and cloud-native best practices (containers, serverless, IaC, etc.).

• Ensure strong alignment between engineering, product, data science, and architecture.
• Facilitate healthy tension, resolve ambiguity, and enable smart tradeoffs.
• Identify gaps in org design, domain boundaries, or team charters — and advocate for change.
• Represent the Search organization across engineering leadership and with executive stakeholders.

You Have

• 7+ years of engineering leadership experience, including managing managers.
• Proven track record of leading teams that build and scale complex search or information retrieval systems.
• Deep experience with Agile, CI/CD, cloud platforms (ideally AWS), and modern software engineering practices.
• Familiarity with ML-powered search or close partnership with data science teams (bonus: semantic search, vector retrieval, personalization).
• Strong product thinking and a bias for impact.
• Excellent collaboration, communication, and influence skills — especially across disciplines.
• A passion for people development and team health.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or related field (or equivalent experience).

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.