Director, Product Engineering - Search & Discovery (Hybrid)

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

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