Engineering Manager, Search Platform

Salary: $195,000 - 255,000 per year Requirements:

• We need 8+ years of software engineering experience, including time spent leading teams or acting as a technical lead in complex backend or platform environments.
• We want engineering management experience, with a demonstrated history of hiring, coaching, and retaining strong engineers.
• We need deep technical credibility in search or retrieval systems such as Vespa, Elasticsearch, OpenSearch, or Solr, ideally gained through a major re-architecture or build-from-scratch initiative.
• We want strong backend expertise in distributed, event-driven systems; Go experience is preferred.
• We need experience with indexing pipelines, document models, and event-streaming patterns that keep results fresh and accurate.
• We want strong instincts for relevance and ranking, plus the ability to convert product goals into signals, evaluation methods, and technical choices.
• We need experience with observability, production operations, and safe rollouts for correctness-critical systems.
• We want sound judgment to balance technical depth, people leadership, and cross-functional collaboration without losing clarity or ownership.

• We will lead delivery and technical quality across query serving, indexing, availability, and the APIs and contracts other teams rely on.
• We will define the technical direction for the search stack, including engine architecture, document schema, indexing and query patterns, ranking strategy, and migration sequencing.
• We will own the freshness and correctness of the index and the availability domain so customers see restaurants that can actually fulfill an order.
• We will stay close to the engineering work by reviewing designs, challenging assumptions, and helping reduce risk in architecture and delivery decisions.
• We will foster a culture of measurement, experimentation, and ongoing improvement in search quality, platform reliability, and operational performance.
• We will coach, develop, and grow engineers through direct feedback, clear expectations, and a high technical bar for search engineering.
• We will prioritize sharply and sequence work effectively to lower technical risk, improve execution, and unblock downstream teams.
• We will partner closely with product, data, AI/ML, and platform engineering on relevance signals, experimentation, personalization, and shared infrastructure.
• We will help build a strong foundation for the future with clear ownership boundaries, solid engineering habits, and a platform others can confidently build on.

• AI
• OpenSearch
• Backend
• ElasticSearch
• Solr

More:

We are ezCater, the #1 food tech platform for workplaces in the US, helping organizations manage food needs and order from more than 125,000 restaurants nationwide. Our platform supports everything from employee meal programs to one-off meetings with flexible, scalable solutions backed by 24/7 service and business-grade reliability, while also helping restaurant partners grow through new high-value customers and large orders. Search is the front door of our marketplace, and this technical management role reports to the Director of Engineering while guiding the team responsible for restaurant discovery, the search engine, the indexing pipeline, and availability services. We are actively replatforming search, and this role will help strengthen the team and shape the architecture, delivery, and operational maturity of that foundation. We offer a high-performing, innovative environment with engaged colleagues, meaningful work, opportunities to grow, market-competitive salary, stock options, 12 paid holidays, flexible PTO, 401K match, health/dental/FSA, disability coverage, mental health and family planning resources, and remote-hybrid flexibility from our Boston office or home. We value work/life harmony, autonomy, and a culture of inclusion, and we do not employ jerks, even brilliant ones.

last updated 33 week of 2026