# Engineering Manager, Search Platform

**Company:** [ezCater](https://hotfix.jobs/companies/ezcater)
**Location:** Remote
**Role:** Engineering Management
**Salary:** $195k – $255k/yr
**Experience:** 8+ years
**Skills:** Search Systems, Vespa, Elasticsearch, Opensearch, Solr, Go, Distributed Systems, Event-Driven Systems, Indexing Pipelines, Ranking Algorithms, Observability, Production Operations
**Posted:** 2026-07-06

> Lead the Search Platform engineering team at ezCater, owning search engine, indexing pipeline, and availability services that power restaurant discovery. Set technical direction for replatforming efforts while directly managing and growing engineers in a technical management role.

## Job Description

## What You’ll Do

- Lead delivery and technical quality across query serving, indexing, availability, and the APIs and contracts other teams depend on.
- Set technical direction for the search stack, including engine architecture, document schema, indexing and query patterns, ranking strategy, and migration sequencing.
- Own the freshness and correctness of the index and the availability domain so customers see restaurants that can actually fulfill an order.
- Stay close to the technical work by reviewing designs, challenging assumptions, and helping the team de-risk architecture and delivery decisions.
- Build a culture of measurement, experimentation, and continuous improvement in search quality, platform reliability, and operational performance.
- Coach, develop, and grow engineers through direct feedback, clear expectations, and a high technical bar for search engineering.
- Prioritize ruthlessly and sequence work effectively to reduce technical risk, improve execution, and unblock downstream teams.
- Partner closely with product, data, AI/ML, and platform engineering on relevance signals, experimentation, personalization, and shared infrastructure.
- Help the team build a strong foundation for the future, with clear ownership boundaries, strong engineering habits, and a platform others can confidently build on.

## What You Have

- 8+ years of software engineering experience, including experience leading teams or serving as a technical lead in complex backend or platform environments.
- Engineering management experience, with a track record of hiring, developing, and retaining strong engineers.
- Deep technical credibility in search or retrieval systems such as Vespa, Elasticsearch, OpenSearch, or Solr, ideally through a major re-architecture or build-from-scratch effort.
- Strong backend depth in distributed, event-driven systems; Go experience is preferred.
- Experience with indexing pipelines, document models, and event-streaming patterns that keep results fresh and correct.
- Strong instincts for relevance and ranking, and the ability to translate product goals into signals, evaluation approaches, and technical decisions.
- Experience with observability, production operations, and safe rollouts for correctness-critical systems.
- The judgment to balance technical depth, people leadership, and cross-functional partnership without losing clarity or ownership.

## Compensation & Benefits

The national total target cash compensation range for this position, including base salary and bonus target, is $195,000–$255,000 annually.

Market competitive salary, stock options, 12 paid holidays, flexible PTO, 401K with match, health/dental/FSA, long-term disability insurance, mental health and family planning resources, remote-hybrid work, employee meal program.

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