Head of Product Discovery Engineering

Wayfair; Boston (MA); Hybrid; USD 140,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Wayfair is seeking an Associate Director of Software Engineering for Product Discovery in Boston. The role leads three core teams—Product Exploration, Shopping Discovery, and Promotions & Curations—driving the technical vision, strategy, and roadmap for customer-facing discovery experiences across web and app.

You will coach engineering managers, partner with Product and Design, and champion a data-informed, experimentation-driven culture to deliver scalable platforms and equitable outcomes for

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in software engineering building and operating large-scale, customer-facing web applications.
• 4+ years of experience leading engineering managers and/or multi-team organizations, ideally in e-commerce, consumer technology, or similarly high-scale environments.
• Demonstrated success leading engineering teams that build discovery, search, browse, navigation, or merchandising experiences.
• Strong technical foundation in modern web architectures and platforms (microservices, event-driven systems, modern frontend frameworks such as React/Next.js, GraphQL or RESTful APIs).
• Proven ability to define and drive multi-year technical and organizational roadmaps across multiple teams, using data to prioritize, sequence, and communicate tradeoffs.
• Track record of building, developing, and retaining high-performing, diverse engineering teams.
• Experience operating in highly cross-functional environments; collaborate with Product, Design, Analytics, Marketing, and partner teams.
• Strong communication and storytelling skills for engineers, partners, and executives.
• Learning mindset and curiosity about new technologies and patterns.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or equivalent.

Responsibilities

• Provide the technical vision, strategy, and roadmap for Product Discovery, spanning listing experiences, browsing and navigation, and promotional surfaces across web and app.
• Lead and develop a group of engineering managers and their teams, ensuring clear goals, high-quality execution, and alignment to business outcomes.
• Partner with Product and Design leaders to define ambitious but achievable roadmaps balancing near-term impact with long-term platform investments.
• Own the reliability, performance, and quality of customer-facing discovery experiences and ensure observability and tooling for scale.
• Drive a multi-year technical and organizational strategy for discovery platforms and storefront integration.
• Champion experimentation and data-informed decision making with metrics and A/B testing.
• Collaborate across Wayfair to align on standards and reusable platforms for discovery and promotions.
• Build and nurture a high-performing, inclusive engineering culture with ownership and continuous improvement.
• Coach and develop direct reports and broader organization with clear expectations and growth opportunities.
• Represent Product Discovery engineering with senior leaders, communicating tradeoffs and progress.

Skills

Senior leadership

Engineering managers

Discovery/merchandising

Web architectures

Roadmaps/strategy

Hiring/diversity

Cross-functional collaboration

Communication

Growth mindset

Bachelor's degree in CS/CE

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or Computer Engineering

Job description

Wayfair is seeking an Associate Director of Software Engineering for Product Discovery in Boston. The role leads three core teams—Product Exploration, Shopping Discovery, and Promotions & Curations—driving the technical vision, strategy, and roadmap for customer-facing discovery experiences across web and app.

You will coach engineering managers, partner with Product and Design, and champion a data-informed, experimentation-driven culture to deliver scalable platforms and equitable outcomes for